Life in Charms with Dita Von Teese

0:01I'm Anushka Dukas and I've been designing jewell for 30 years and collecting charms for as long as I can remember. In this podcast, I will be asking a series of extraordinary women to tell me their life story in charms. Welcome to my life in charms. Tassels at the ready. Today's guest is no ordinary icon. Once described as a snow white gone bad, she's known the world over for her show-stopping 1940s style, signature scarlet lip and the art of undress performed like no one else. She grew up shy and soft-spoken in a tiny Michigan town with just one traffic light. A quiet girl with a vivid imagination, obsessed with old movies and vintage glamour.

0:47Fast forward to today and she's the queen of burlesque with a sold-out Las Vegas residency, a fashion and beauty empire and her very own giant martini glass. She's turned tees into an art form, lingerie into power and vintage glamour into a lifestyle. So how did Heather Sweet become Dita Von Tees? This is Life in Chance with the one and only Dita Von Tees. Wow, thank you for that. So lovely that you're here. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So I'm kind of, so there are so many wonderful stories in these, in these, in these charms. and so many uh kind of details but um the first is all about your childhood but before we get to that how was the how did you find this whole kind of thinking about your about your life in charms um I mean my first thought was like oh I just started like riffing on ideas and because I do have charm bracelets and I've been collecting charms for a long time it was like a little bit I'm sure I was overthinking you know like afraid I'd leave something out or thinking about where what all my fantasy charms were that got away but then going oh well that's not relative to me you know like things like that but it's so unusual because not everybody has a child bracelet I know right somebody like you who's really collected you know vintage in so many ways yeah I guess it's a little bit of a lost art like you know people don't make charms anymore or a lot of people melted down all the great vintage charms when gold prices were high so they're a little bit elusive sometimes and you know I used to always think oh I would wish I could collect charms the way people did in the old days when you'd travel and you'd find a thing but like nobody even makes them really anymore like when you're traveling you know I'm always looking well you know what I mean you go to like a fabulous location and think I wonder if that jewelry store has a little charm I can add to my charm bracelet yeah I'm very it's very hard to find usually I think so yeah you have to go to someone like you who can make all the different kinds of charms uh well I've just because for me as I said it's all about the detail because because you can make a charm it's just static and it right right doesn't do the same thing but when did you start collecting charms I'm trying to think well first I got the bracelet I bought a beautiful Victorian era with the heart shaped it came in a beautiful heart yeah the the the bracelet with the the lock the heart shaped lock and it came in a really beautiful um heart shaped green dark green velvet box yeah and it started there and I just thought I've always loved charm bracelets you know when you see them in old photos and um yeah and I just started from scratch just like that And I think the first thing I did was maybe buy like four.

3:44I looked on mostly on eBay or Etsy and would find things. And I think the first ones were like, oh, I'm going to find a vintage martini glass to represent my act. I'm going to find a vintage car to represent my cars that I collect. And it started just with me thinking of that, like things that were relative to me, telling my story, basically. I didn't know you collected cars. You didn't got any cars. Yeah, I know. Well, like I said, I had to like stop somewhere. Otherwise, I was going, you know, it would be a thousand charms. Yeah, hard to talk to yourself. So let's start with your first charm, which I think is all about childhood memories.

4:25So you said you'd like a lilac flower. So I love the idea of a lilac flower because I thought I could make it individually carved amethyst in the shape of each little individual petal. And so they're carved amethyst flowers with tiny little gold beads in the centre and they're attached by a jump ring to a kind of main stalk which will be hidden by all the flowers. And so there's lots and lots of movement so they'll all move independently. And then the leaf is yellow gold and it'll be very much textured with all the veins of the leaf and it will turn around its stalk so it'll be very playful and gorgeous I think actually yeah very pretty but so you said this is to this is to represent your child so tell me a bit about your child here so I grew up in a small town in Michigan and we had an old house that we lived in on the corner of a little street and this house was surrounded by huge lilac hedges and um all the lilacs were various colors like white dark purple and then that quintessential medium purple and so in the summer spring and summer those lilacs would come into full bloom and we always had my mother was always cutting the lilacs but they were everywhere the entire perimeter of the house really and then there was a little, you know, so I used to, I just, and the scent of them and, and cutting them, which they're quite hard to cut.

6:08Yeah. They've have a really like, you know, they're very woody. They're not easy to cut, but, um, I just remember like my mom cutting them and me, us using them in decor everywhere. But I had, there was one area where there was a kind of a canopy. It was like a little, I had a little lilac cave and I could go in there and it was like my little place where I'd, you know had a little tree stump and play yes it was like my little lilac playroom um and i remember i had a little cat that was very tolerant cat that she wore i could dress her in dresses and bonnets and she was totally fine yeah yeah and so it's like me and that cat and that little lilac uh little lilac cave it's a one of my favorite memories you're very close to your mother yeah I was all I mean I was always close to my mother my mother was a manicurist and so you know like beauty was a thing in our household even though she was you know not she didn't wear red lipstick or high heels and all this sort of thing she was very much like a 70s mom you know yeah but yeah she loved old movies so I grew up watching classic films and that's really what had a big imprint on me with regard to like how why I love the 1930s and 40s and 50s so much.

7:27It's just sort of like the fact that those movies had a big imprint on me. And it was because she liked watching them. And did your sisters, because you were two sisters, did they love it as much as you? I think that's a good question. I don't think so. I think it was more of my kind of thing. although both of my sisters in their adult lives have gone through phases where they dressed in vintage clothing and wore the red lipstick like they went through phases my younger sister was really into like vintage swing dancing and she was very good at it and um so we were like around the vintage you know it's like they've dipped in and out in and out of it whereas I kind of just like stayed in it forever I never left did you always as a child was it when you're sitting in You know, a little lilac bush enclave.

8:21Did you always have a vivid imagination? I think I was an avid reader. I loved to read. And funnily, my parents still go, like, they tell the story. But when I was first, like, learning to read and could start buying, getting books at the library, checking out books at the library, I loved reading about English history. and I remember I came home with this big book my dad loves to tell the story he's like you came home with this big fat book about King Henry VIII and his wives and my dad was like why are you reading this and I was like I don't know I just want to read it it's like a soap opera so when you were reading so so you're reading the books but visually I'm you know I'm kind of thinking films about that whole era because obviously corsets so that was such an important part of that.

9:14I wonder where that started to catch. Yeah, well, I did have a fascination with lingerie and I used to peek into my mother's lingerie. How old are we now? I must have been like seven years old, you know, six or seven years old. But I was so curious about women's undergarments and this secret thing that I didn't get to wear these lacy things. What is this? And you know what's so funny is I still have a bra that I stole out of my mother's lingerie drawer. Oh, could describe the bra. Well, it's kind of racy, but kind of not. If you think, if you know a lot about lingerie history, there was like a period, um, even in the thirties where bras had like, and especially if you could imagine in the seventies, like the nipple was free.

9:59Okay. And my, and it was, cause I remember always seeing like loose breasts and t-shirts, like nobody cared about it. Then it's strange yeah and it's like a black bra like an open cut bra with nipple yeah it's just kind of like goes like this you know and so there's like a little bit of support but like leaving the the shape of the nipple open which I collect vintage lingerie and I have quite a few bras from the 1930s that are like that too um so but yeah I somehow swiped that from my own mother's were and i worked in lingerie when i was a teenager too you're gonna come on to that but but i also read that you were at your first bra you were given some ghastly cotton oh yeah yeah like it was you know i don't you probably don't have i don't think you have this here but you must have the equivalent but we had these things called legs and it's l apostrophe e ggs eggs and it was a pair of like shriveled up pantyhose that came in this like egg shaped plastic thing like an Easter egg, but like this big, right?

11:02And it's called legs. And everyone knew about this like plastic egg that came with the pantyhose, but it was very like the shriveled, you know, suntan pantyhose, like not very pretty. And I remember when I was first like old enough to kind of first cover my legs, you know, it's like a rite of passage, right? As a young girl, maybe back then, I don't know if it's like that now, but, um, and I was thinking, because of course I was stealing sneak peeks at my dad's playboys under the bed and I thought I was going to wear stockings and also because I'm watching 1940s films and I'm seeing like you know little glimpses of of the ladies pulling up their stockings and I'm like oh yeah oh it's time for me to wear leg wear hosiery and I got that that egg with the pantyhose in it and I was like what on earth is this like it was not what I expected and I did start working in a lingerie store and saved up my money and bought myself my first garter belt and stockings like not equating it with sex at all so so just so tell me about that so so yeah so you went there age quite young 15 yeah yeah I was I think I was maybe like 14 when I first proposed myself to uh work at the lingerie store and just said can I can I help tag things and it started like that I used to you know clean the toilets at the ballet studio so that I could have ballet classes and I was very afraid of asking for things so I had a job early on so your your next job was I've actually put it as your next one was a ballet shoot yes which I guess brings us brings you neatly onto saying what yeah what what what brought that on you wanted to well I I don't what know what made me want to take ballet classes because I have taken ballet classes for as long as I could remember I must have been like at five years old and dropped off at the you know not even a ballet class but like some kind of movement thing you know yeah my mom's like yeah A little dance class.

13:12Keep you occupied. But then I remember a ballet studio opened in my little town and I asked if I could clean the toilets in exchange for ballet class. Wow. Very early signs of being in charge of your own destiny. And also realizing early on that like not, you know, independence in a way, you know. It's interesting. So I love, I mean, I love the ballet shoes. and I um I when I when I looked up I was like oh look oh yeah yeah so for the listeners I'm I'm looking at a ballet shoe that isn't all about a it's not what you imagine a ballerina it's kind of sexy uh sexy fishnet tight and so these are black on point ballet ballet shoes so I've done them in white gold um but set with black diamonds uh to represent the satin in and we'll put black rhodium so that so that it's very black um and i've seen the ribbons as black rhodium over white um and they will hang so they'll move they'll move beautifully um and they are you can see they're crossed at the front right that's how you yeah that's how you do the ballet shoes up and on the bottom um on the sole of the leather which is just very plain is uh is written dita in your in your lovely logo you know um but i think i think they'd be absolutely um divine um but it's so interesting to hear to hear how you you know why ballet and um and you didn't continue you know you're far off yeah i i well i always as i grew i danced my whole life but i was not very good ever it was always a struggle for me right although i loved dancing on point i was very strong when all the other girls were in tears because it hurt so bad I was like this is great pointing around like I loved all of the things about ballet like the shoes the costumes the dramatic makeup I mean these are all things that I loved and very good it yes but also I think and when I look back it was very um like other like otherworldly to me you know not something you see like exquisite is the word I think about a lot and even later in life when I started performing all my first burlesque shows I did on point I was like I'm going to do a feather fan dance but I'm going to do it in point shoes oh I'm going to come out of a big powder compact but I'm going to do it in point shoes I'm going to be a ballerina in a jewel box and build this jewel box and it's going to open and I'm going to be in point shoes and I'm going to take off my clothes and point in it so I had a lot of numbers even when I was a bird in a bird cage I did it on point so I always thought of point shoes as being very erotic.

16:02It's like the ultimate high heel shoe. So you weren't as good at it as you might have been. Right. So then and then what? Let's see what happened next. Well, not being good enough to be a dancer is really what led me to creating my own burlesque career. I just somehow eased my way into that, which I think is not unusual. I think most maybe ballerinas that grew too tall became Blue Bell Girls and then went to Las Vegas and danced in the Topless Reviews. And I love that. So I always think sometimes the things that you don't expect are the things that lead you to do something totally different than you planned on.

16:47but at some point between ballet and cleaning the loos and you move your parents separated didn't they yeah 16 15 16 17 I was working in a lingerie store I had my boyfriend like you know I was wearing all of this lingerie and my and it's like kind of a I think I actually reconciled this with my dad fairly recently for my documentary but um I was living with my dad and I was working in the lingerie store and I used to as one does wash my lingerie and I worked in a nice lingerie store it was beautiful lingerie and I you know hang it up to dry and my dad was very offended by that and very like he kicked me out of the house for for working the lingerie store well for what like For wearing those, like, black lace, which, like, and I was, of course, like, why is black lace wrong?

17:48And years later, I thought, like, oh, it's really interesting people's, what people put on something like that. Like, just because you're wearing beautiful lingerie doesn't mean you're wearing it for someone. It just might, you know, like, how do you equate? It's good about me. Yeah, the imprint, though, of what his thoughts are about black lace lingerie are. That's interesting. And you would go, oh, I had to take that on, and I didn't even understand it. That's so true. And I kind of had to unravel it later. Particularly as your mother had it, it was all seemed like it had a pretty normal. But could you imagine, though?

18:24Like, my father probably was not very happy with my mother either. Oh, clearly. You know, and her black lingerie. So is that, so, I mean, for me, I've drawn it as a gorgeous, gorgeous feminine corset. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I absolutely see it. Again, I mean, I've taken it from your glamour matrix. Yes, that's the one. I knew it. You knew it. The reader doesn't know, but I mean, it's absolutely gorgeous. It's, I've done it in rose gold. It's three dimensional. so you absolutely could put a tiny body into it and it's a complete replica of that corset rose gold dangling suspenders also with ruby pavé rubies onto it and the mid section is it'll be pierced the rose gold so it'll be like lace and then the bra and the panty section will be ruby pavé and I've put a little ruby heart uh in the in the tummy button it'll be a little cabochon really and then if you look at the back um it is is it's to represent the uh the lace and the bow detail and I see that as kind of a rose gold wire and which you know you could almost pull tighter which I think it'd be completely divine and I think it'll be about about 20 20 millimeters high so very small yeah but but gorgeous and good size cups and I think it'll be absolute heaven so famously you managed to get your waist from 22 inches to 16 and a half at some point okay at some point I always I don't think about the numbers very much anymore when I was younger I was very like oh look at me with my tiny little waist and and then recently somebody came up to me and they said are you that you're that woman that has a famously small waist and I I was like, oh, that's what I'm famous for on the street.

20:42I thought like everything I feel like I've done, that's it. Okay. Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, I don't, when I was younger, I was very obsessed with having, you know, like not the numbers, but just like being a fetish model with the tiniest waist. And now I'm a little, you know. But can I just ask on a really practical level? I mean, clearly not very few people will get to that. But how do you actually do that? you just tighten how do you do that you tighten the core yeah well like a true corset yeah um and the one that you've drawn is a mr pearl corset and mr pearl is a very important figure and he's the most well he's he's the most important corset maker uh of the last 30 years really actually as of modern times like he he's the one that when you see um all of the Terry Mugler corsets, the Jean-Paul Gaultier, the McQueen, things that are in the museums were made by him, all of them.

21:44Yeah, he's really incredible. And he makes many of my corsets whenever I can afford it. I feel like he's, you know, he can only make a few things a year. What does a corset cost at that? Well, Mr. Pearl's very particular. People are like, you know, people reach out to him all the time and ask if they can, you know, get in touch with him and he's like you don't get to even see him unless you're putting down a bank wire transfer and probably like at the minimal about you know 12 000 pounds oh wow and that's like not with all the lace and the rhinestones and all of that but this is but this is a museum piece this is like haute couture this is beyond this is like real haute couture like um when uh john galliano recently did the margela show he came to my house to look at my mr pearl corsets because i have a I think I have probably the biggest collection at this point that's in one collection besides like the Mugler collection or the Jean-Paul Gaultier collection or La Croix.

22:42Anyway, so it isn't, it's really, he's just the master and there's no competition for him. The one that you've drawn actually has, the bra is separate and laces up actually the same way a corset does. and then the corset this one in particular um it laces in a in a special way where there's lacing at the top and I do mine in a special way for striptease trade secrets yeah and then there's like a loop at the waist you decide where the waist is going to be and then you lace the rest and you pull those two strings in the center and that's what causes the cinching what I love is the look of the corset I like what it does for the posture I obviously like the drama of it I like that it's the most difficult item to strip tease from like I always think about how do I make the strip tease more difficult than it should be someone I was working on a show and one of the costumer that didn't know me said oh hey have you ever thought of putting a zipper in those and I thought have I ever thought of putting a zipper in it like we sit around and think of like how to make it outrageously complicated because why would you just put a zipper in it first of all The whole point is to take your time and make something like dramatic and otherworldly and difficult.

24:01And like, I know I would never put a zipper in a corset more than I'd even put a Velcro in an outfit to get it off. No, never. So as you were as you were started modeling from the from, I guess, from the luxury store, you started to model for that. Kind of. What happened? Not the laundry store I worked at. But so I worked in this lingerie store and then I met someone who, like I saw wearing a corset. I was like, where did you get that? It was somebody out at a nightclub in the L.A. rave scene. And she gave me an address. Yeah. And I followed the little map on the address. Yeah. Back when that's what you did before.

24:39Yeah. Before we had a. Yes. Yeah. And I walked in and it was a fetish store. Right. That made custom corsets. and that kind of changed my life. For those people that don't really understand fetish, can you just describe what your fetish is? I mean, it's been around forever since the invention of the camera, right? Like people have been interested in exotic clothing and bondage and, you know, fetishes run the gamut, right, of like, you know, people have foot fetishes, people have high heel fetishes, They want to be, you know, stepped on, whipped. They want to be dominated. And I think there's a whole thing of different types of fetish clothing.

25:25So like in that, I fell in love with corsetry, long leather opera gloves, and what's called full-fashioned stockings. And full-fashioned stockings are stockings that don't have any lycra that were made in the 1940s and 50s. they're not silk they're like hand finished it's like a couture stocking it has a keyhole and a wealth there's like a in my first book there's an anatomy of a full fashion stocking I go into what it is and why I love it um but there is like a whole world of people who are obsessed with full fashion stockings if you google it you'll you'll get into a wormhole of like oh wow you know so I used to um I just became obsessed with these beautiful stockings and I still am you know I'm still very like but is the fetish thing is it a sexual thing or is it just um is it is it just that or is it other okay the true the true definition of a fetish would be sexual erotic in nature yeah like a real true fetishist if you were like I am a true fetishist you met some that it means like it would be that fetish that they have is more powerful to them than sex okay it's like when you meet a real fetishist yeah they're going to say if my wife knew you were smoking this cigarette in front of me you know it would be worse than if i was having sex with you like this is like how powerful so just to give you an example because you know there's people that have fetishes about watching women blow smoke rings you know it's it's i find it fascinating i've always known fetishists and been intrigued by them um one of my first like one of my favorite people in the world who passed away quite some time ago now.

27:14I met him in the early 90s and he was a heterosexual guy that liked to dress in women's clothing. And it just, I was so fascinated by this idea. And of course I see people, people come to my shows all the time and I'll meet people, couples, and the wife will say something like, this is his first time being dressed in women's clothing in public. My show feels very like a place where people can feel like they can do that. But, you know, I think I'm just fascinated by the psychology of fetishism. I think like sometimes people need permission to see other examples of things that they might fantasize about doing and hopefully they'll try it out for themselves.

27:53Like you can always, you can always like wipe the red lipstick off and, you know, go back to your blowout and wear your like casual clothes. It's like, it doesn't require surgery. Absolutely. Absolutely. Any Have you had knee surgery? Have you had knee surgery? Well, I had my boobs done when I was like 22 years old. But that was a big deal then, though, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's funny. Like, I think about how brave I was. Naturally, were you flat chested? Well, okay, so no, not really. But what happened was, remember when I told you I was hanging out with all those drag queens and kids in the rave scene?

28:25Yeah. You know, I was doing a lot of drugs. Yeah. And that will take a toll on your body, especially when you're like 20 years old. and suddenly I was like lost too much weight from too much partying. And I was like, you know, too many drugs, doing the drugs and then got myself together. And then I was sort of like, oh, why don't I do it? And everyone said, don't do that. Don't do that to yourself. And I've never regretted it, you know? No, it's also very much part of who you are, part of your act. And yet I'm to hold these jeweled pasties up, right? Yeah. And I made that decision back then. and yeah I guess I never looked back but now I think back and I go I'd be so afraid I haven't had any other kind of plastic surgery and I'd be so scared sometimes I think about like when it comes time to have like you know whatever a procedure I'd be so I'm so scared of it I wasn't scared when I was 22 you know thinking about it you know but that's so interesting isn't it whether you did it whether you'd go back and do it now I probably would have waited a little bit longer but then again you know you can't change things and would no no there's no regrets I mean I guess I probably wouldn't change anything right like I don't know it's so interesting that isn't it you know I don't think about it much um but you're then you said okay well my next charm mini top hat with feather yeah um so tell me about that okay so immediately when I looked at the charm I thought oh this is very like top hat makes me think of my next tour which is magic themed, have become a magician.

30:02I had this idea. There's the talk coming up. Yes. I had an idea a few years ago about bringing together striptease and magic illusions. And so I started working with some master magicians around Vegas and LA. And you told me earlier that you have learned how to do it. Yes. You can do your magic. I have a really fun grand illusion that I do, that I was trained to do. It's not so easy. I get a lot of bruises when I'm working on that. But so I thought about this top hat, and my show is called Nocturne. I'll be in the UK at the Palladium and all around the UK. But it's like my big scale show. But when I thought about this, I look at it, I said, oh, it's the top hat.

30:46And then the feather, which I dance with feather fans. And so I think about the top hat and feather. But I know I also mentioned to you my favorite era of clothing. I love the 1940s when women wore these whimsical top hats and I have a big collection of the fedoras, top hats, like whimsical hats on theme, tricorns you know, all kinds of like trilby hats and things, but scaled to woman size, not like a tiny circus top hat but like a really, and I collect these hats and I have it for me like 30 years, so it's my favorite era of fashion or these 1940s, that era where the hats were really fun and outrageous so it made me think of both things though because when I'm looking at it I think about my show but then I know I told you the story of the little hats that I collect.

31:35I know you did you absolutely did but I was like I don't want to do it as a a little feather on a hat because I was thinking of you and burlesque and your use of of huge feathers yeah uh in in in you know on the stage so uh so the way i've drawn it as you can see is i've drawn it as a i've done it in white gold uh that the top hat is three-dimensional tiny little top hat have made me think about uh the monopoly hat a little bit um it's uh and then the black ribbon is black diamonds um around the hat and then the pink i've done the feather as a kind of pale pink graduate from pale pink sapphires to dark pink towards the spine of the feather.

32:22And the feather will be articulated as far as we can articulate it. Because so much of what you're doing is all that gorgeous, sexy movement of the feather. I love feather. I love feather jewelry, too. I have quite a bit of like whenever there's a vintage feather brooch or necklace, like my vintage jewelry person. And I collect a lot of costume jewelry, right? I love like 30s and 40s era costume jewelry, big jewelry. And she always knows to let me know when there's feathers. And I'm so interested in the feathers that you have got or collected. Are they articulated? No, I've never seen an articulated, to be honest.

32:59Because there's lots of kind of feeling of movement in those antique feathers. But I love the idea of it being articulated, a bit like a fish, I should be articulated. deconated um um so at what point like you've got to tell me what point did heather become dita well it started i was working in a strip club when i was 20 years old so we are we still in the lingerie shop we are yeah i'm doing multiple jobs okay yeah i'm working and i'm in the rave scene as a dancer i'm working in the lingerie store and then sometimes move to the beauty department and I'm working in the strip club at night. I'm very light.

33:40Lots of dark, light and dark. I love it. I'm working a lot. And, um, where was I going with that? Oh, when did I? Oh, so I remember, um, when I first started working at the strip club, they were like, oh yeah, you should pick a fake name. And I was like, oh, okay, well, I don't know. And they picked out a name for me and I was like, I'm not going to be called that. And so I had just seen a movie with an actor called Dita Parlo. And I was like, I'm going to be Dita. And, um, yeah. So then what happened after that was I was in these new, what's called the newsstand edition of Playboy. So Playboy magazine had all of these magazines that came out every other month that was like, they were themes and it was all the girls that were, you know, some of them were Playboy playmates, but a lot of them just weren't, they were just Playboy models, you know, the videos and pose for pictures and so i remember they they i finally um i got hired as one of those models and when i and they said well you have to have a last name and i go why can't i just be detail like share or madonna like why do i have a last name and they said no you have to have a last name and i was like and i remember sitting at the sitting at the bar in the strip club with a friend and pulled out the uh the the white pages which was like the phone book we had yellow We had that kid yellow pages.

35:02Yeah. But, um, and so I, I was like, you know, just had a drink at the bar and I'm like, I gotta find a last name. Oh, how about something with Vaughn in it? Yeah. That's exotic. You know, it's also, remember I'm working in the strip club and I often like to pretend I didn't speak English and I was from a faraway land because remember I have this black haircut. I'm wearing a corset. There's nobody like me. Like it's like, you know, the nineties it's like the stripper nineties. there's nobody like me in there okay I looked very different yeah out of place um so I said I need like an exotic name so I looked under Von and I found this name Von Trees and I called them and I was like I'm gonna be Dita Von Trees you know thinking nothing of it yeah then I you know go to the liquor store a month and a half later and I to get my my first issue and I pull I grab the magazine and I open it and it says Von Tease that's not right and I called them and I said that's not right and I go we'll get it right next month and so next month they did it again and they kept doing it and the funny thing is it never occurred to me that it was like an ideal name it was just like I never thought like Von Tease it's just like they miss the R they just did you a huge favor and I remember one time I was doing an interview years later and a journalist was like oh she's so contrived even with the name it's so contrived and I thought it's not contrived it's not contrived it was an action it was a typo if I had planned it if I had known I was going to be doing this outside of the strip club um and beyond if I'd known I was going to be trademarking it for my lingerie brand I would not have done it I would have come up with some fabulous stage name but you know it was really like fine it just worked out the way it did It was absolutely, it couldn't be better.

36:50It could not be better. We'll go on to our next charm, which is a cocktail glass. Yeah. Just tell me about this cocktail glass, because I think for those people that haven't seen your show, I think you need to explain what it is. Well, I guess I am probably most famous for bathing in a giant cocktail glass. It started with a martini glass. it started as a a duet with my best friend Catherine Delish we were dancing together she was in the champagne glass I was in the martini glass and we did a dueling striptease where we both ended up in these giant glasses was she called Catherine Delish or was that a made up no it's a very good made up name yes so there we were like touring across the country like doing this dueling glasses act and yeah and she's a very special person to me too because she did teach me this choreography and before that you know sometimes people say like oh they didn't invent that well the there was never a dance in a giant martini or champagne glass in 1930s and 40s American burlesque or any burlesque it's very much like it was like kind of like mythological art you know the girl in the glass was like a thing and and Catherine really invented this like dance that is like this spinning these poses and then of course it evolved we evolved it together when we met and um you know that's how it came to be it's so much part of your signature yeah yeah I you know I became known for this act and uh Catherine's still my like closest collaborator we make my my best burlesque numbers have all been in partnership with her and am I right in thinking that you had to teach Taylor Swift to do it.

38:46Yeah. That must have been a fun thing. It was fun. Actually, I saw the YouTube video. She was having problems with the stockings. Yes. And those were full-fashioned stockings. I was very insistent when we did that with her people and her stylist. I said, listen, if we're going to do this, she's going to have to wear what I wear, like Louboutins. I connected her with the Louboutin Atelier. It was like Louboutin, full fashion stockings, Sorosy crystal corset created by Catherine Delish. And we're going to do this together. And it was, you know, it was, it was really fun to, to kind of like immerse her in my world.

39:24I mean, she was obviously horrified when she broke the stripping. I was like, oh my God. There's some things you take. Yeah. I guess I take for granted. I've been doing it, you know, for a long time and it's easy. It's easy. But you know, I can't sing a note. but the charm so the the way I've done the charm which you might have been a bit surprised by but I kind of I'd love the fact when I was when I was researching I love the fact that actually it's cocktail glass but it it it there's a martini glass and a and a coupe so I've done it um on my kind of on part of my spinning series so you can see it's a a diamond frame with a two-dimensional um coin kind of in the middle of it um the coin spins within the frame so i love the whole idea because i'm like it seems to speak to what you do quite a lot um and on one side um is the champagne coupe um and i put a little a little strawberry and pink sapphires on the edge of the glass um and the martini glass had to have the trademark olive yeah and so that's made of savourites of green savourites um and it will the whole thing will spin perfectly um but i didn't want to do it as a completely traditional champagne you know yeah coop because it's been done before and I have a vintage martini charm which I actually had that enamel had worn off the green olive and I went in and painted it myself you did though, yeah that really reminds me I guess what people don't realise is that you really choreograph what's the word?

41:05choreograph that's the word, thank you choreograph your shows, don't you? well, kind of I mean, the thing is I spoke of Catherine who's been my right hand in everything I've worked with a few different choreographers but, you know, most of the things are just me like, I'm going to go out there and do this, you know, like I work with, I have a choreographer that I work with in Las Vegas that the thing she does the most is, you know, she's gotten to know me and know what I like and don't like. And I'm kind of the person that, and everyone knows this has ever worked with me as a dancer is like the things that I want to learn, I will learn.

41:38But then some of it, I'm like, I don't see the point in doing that. Like, I don't, it's working. It's like, it's like, uh, I never want to come across as someone who's trying to dance beyond my means, if that makes sense yeah i think less is more totally authentic there's a lot of power in stillness and you can see that when you watch someone like sid sharice who is an extraordinary dancer but like some of her best moments on screen are like less and you can't even describe how it is that she's doing it but it's not about the high kicks it's not about the number of pirouettes it's like really there's something about the essence of like stillness sometimes that kills me and dance like it's what I love about dance but there's it's such a life lesson anyway isn't it less is more yeah it's so much about that but you're you know very much in charge of your own destiny is that true through the other businesses that you created yeah I mean my I think about my other businesses my most important one I think is my lingerie line I got it for about 15 years, you know.

42:45It's not like a Skims line, you know. It's very beautiful lace lingerie, very wearable in everyday life, you know. I was walking through Selfridges and I thought, oh yeah. And they used to carry my lingerie there for many years. But then I was like, oh, it's all Skims now. Oh my God. So it's cool to blend to. Yeah. So I've been online. Yeah. It's mostly online. Like once the pandemic hit, we found that more important than some of the department stores were the mom and pop retailers who are actually showing it and doing socials and showing unboxing videos and people who really like the brand and wear the brand and can speak to it.

43:25I just kind of like it was great being in Bloomingdale's and all these big department stores. But now you can't even compete with the like the Spanx and Skims of the world. but all ironically they're all trying to look like you that's what's that trying to happen gosh so Deedah your next charm is Alistair the Devon Rex cat so tell me about Alistair I had fun doing this actually I love this one so Alistair was my soul mate kitty Devon Rex for people that know they're like They were a breed from the 50s, first came about in the 50s, and they have curly hair, like Rex refers to a curly coat, Rex rabbits, there's other kinds of Rex animals.

44:13And they're kind of the intelligent breed. And I guess about 25 years ago, I was looking to get a cat, and I started researching types of cats, and I just went, oh, wow, this sounds like the cat for me. Like they call them a dog in a cat suit and they're, you know, they're very, um, they're very social and full on. Like they're not, they're not the cat for everyone. Like sometimes people say, Oh, I got to get one of those cats. I go, no, you don't. Because like, you can't leave that cat home while you're away for two days. Okay. So this is like, you have, you've got to like, you treat it like a dog or a family member.

44:49It's not like an aloof cat. They're social. They're on you. They're shoulder cats there. anyway so Alistair was my soulmate kitty and um I had him for 17 years he traveled all over the world with me he was in Paris with me when I lived between Paris and LA he was really like a social media star he was like a beautiful black kitty who is like what you call black smoke um which means they have kind of like a a white undercoat but black tips like um and he was just like this amazing animal like he was on tour I even brought him out on stage for a standing ovation once uh because he was on tour with me and all of my fans like we're following his so he knew his path he might have had an Instagram account and I brought him on stage in front of like 3 ,000 people and he did not it didn't faze him at all he was just like this cool cat that was just unbothered by things and he passed away in 2020 and it was really hard for me because he was such like a part of my life for 17 years and I feel like a child yeah I know how it is animal lovers yeah it is but you said you said to me in your note she said I'm even looking for morning jewelry to carry some of his yes yeah so I was like okay well let's see if we could do this so I've done him I've just just done his head um and um he's he's actually a locket so So the front of his head, as you can see, is absolutely, for those people who are listening but can't see, you'll have to look up a Devon Rex cat.