DITA VON TEESE

Dita Von Teese (born September 28, 1972 in Rochester, MI) is an American burlesque artist, model and actress. Her mother was a manicurist and her father was a machinist. Von Teese is well known for her fascination with 1940s cinema and classic retro style. This began at a young age and was fostered by her mother, who would buy clothes for her daughter to dress up in. Her mother was a fan of old, Golden-era Hollywood films, and it was from her that Von Teese developed a fascination with the actresses of that day, especially Betty Grable, an actress that she frequently cites as her favorite. She was classically trained as a ballet dancer from an early age, and danced solo at age thirteen for a local ballet company. Though she originally wanted to be a ballerina, Von Teese states that "By 15 I was as good as I’d ever be".[1] She was later to incorporate this element into her burlesque shows, where she frequently goes en pointe. At age twelve she moved from Michigan to Orange County, California with her parents and her two sisters. Von Teese attended University High School in Irvine.[2] As a teenager, Von Teese's mother took her to buy her first bra, made from plain white cotton, and gave her a plastic egg containing a pair of wrinkly, flesh-coloured tights. Von Teese says she was disappointed as she had been hoping to receive beautiful lacy garments and stockings, of the type she had glimpsed in her father's Playboy magazines. This fueled her passion for lingerie. She worked in a lingerie store as a salesgirl when she was fifteen, and eventually as a buyer. Some people believe that this is the store where she purchased her first corset, however Dita states in her book that she purchased her first corset in a sex shop. Von Teese has been fond of wearing elaborate lingerie such as corsets and basques with fully fashioned stockings ever since. In college Von Teese studied historic costuming and aspired to work as a stylist for period films. She is a trained costume designer.[3]