The icon who reintroduced burlesque to a new generation, Dita Von Teese is at the heart of its cultural renaissance. Recently lending her dancers to the Golden Globe–nominated The Last Showgirl with Pamela Anderson, Von Teese also collaborated with Taylor Swift on the music video for Bejeweled, Swift’s album The Life of a Showgirl draws inspiration from Von Teese’s world. The ‘Queen of Burlesque’ reflects on the art form’s enduring allure,and the discipline behind the spectacle.
Dita Von Teese is on our zoom call first thing after waking in Las Vegas, where she has been in residency at The Venetian since late 2024, and previously for over a year at The Horseshoe. She describes her day nonchalantly: after our call, she will spend a few hours in Nocturnelle production meetings with her team, from 12pm-6pm in rehearsals, then get into glam (she does it all herself) before kicking off her Las Vegas show at 8pm, afterwards she will wash off her glitz and go to bed, repeating the schedule each day until she leaves for London. Nocturnelle is a 12-day UK tour beginning Jan 26th ‘my most glambitious show to date,’ following on from her global sellout, Glamonatrix.
A determined, singular energy is obviously partly behind the now 53 year old’s rise from a small town in Michigan to her moniker as ‘Queen of Burlesque:’ traversing work at a vintage lingerie store during school in Orange County, California, studying historic costuming in college, working a job in a local striptease club after graduating, and achieving her breakthrough as Playboy cover girl in 2002, at a time ‘when it had real cache.’ Forever inspired by the Golden Age Hollywood stars, she had grown up watching on rainy afternoons with her manicurist mother, ‘the son of Gypsy Rose Lee (played in the film ‘Gypsy’ by Natalie Wood) is a friend of mine I have seen the real home footage of her dancing,’ Dita chose the stage name as a tribute to silent film star, Dita Parlo. Whilst always rooted in the 30’s era, Old Hollywood burlesque traditions, Dita is quick to convey that ‘everything she does is an innovation.’ She adds, ‘I think it’s a common misconception that I am rehashing the past, one of my mission statements is to always bring to stage something that audiences haven’t seen before.’ Likening Nocturnelle to a ‘variety performance’ the show is slated as ‘an exquisite blend of old-Hollywood allure, theatrical magic, and the high art ‘Stripscapes’ Dita is known for… a world of wonder where sensuality meets magic.’
With the recent release of Gia Coppola directed film, The Last Showgirl, starring Pamela Anderson, based on a semi fictional story of a middle aged, Las Vegas burlesque dancer, who loses her livelihood as her revue closes, to be replaced by the more contemporary neo-burlesque circus tradition ‘I lent my dancers for the production. I love Pamela (Anderson) we go years back she’s come to a few of my shows’ and Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl (Dita collaborated with Swift on the video of 2022 hit, Bejeweled), why does Dita think the burlesque tradition is having a renaissance? ‘I think there has always been an evolution of the showgirl, there were many revues through 50’s to the 90’s, but The Jubilee closed in 2016 and that was the last big revue asides from the Moulin Rouge,’ she ponders, ‘I think there is a big nostalgia for a showgirl where it wasn’t far fetched to spend $10million on a feather budget – those shows brought crowds to Vegas and Paris.’
Burlesque meaning ‘to make fun of’ has a fascinating and convoluted history spanning the British rendition of the art by stage dancer, Lydia Thompson, in the mid-19th century to the 30’s era American troupes who gave it the ‘sauntering striptease, va va voom factor’ assures Dita. Staging a new tour here is largely due to ‘the incredible embrace of burlesque in the UK,’ she recalls one of her earliest features in ‘The Face magazine during the 90’s, when I first started out, was profiling the burlesque dancers at the time (there weren’t many) such as the ‘Velvet Hammer’ in LA, but the biggest troupe was actually from Brighton.’
Dita has endured as the ‘modern face’ of Burlesque over a period of cataclysmic cultural change; from today’s digitally driven and visually flatlined landscape to the seismic MeToo movement which shifted societal acceptance of female objectification and challenged traditional perceptions on beauty. Why does she think her signature 40’s inspired jet-black waved hair, red lip look and showstopping spectacles continue to appeal and even attract a younger Gen Z audience schooled in new forms of femininity?
‘I think a lot of females want to see examples of people who embrace power and don’t apologise for it. I think my shows stand for that,’ she muses, ‘I feel that neo burlesque and what I am doing is very niche in the entertainment world and is considered ‘risque’ which I find strange as it wasn’t in the 30’s, 40’s etc.’ She continues fervently, ‘As a teenager, I used to reach for an erotic book but nowadays I am so glad to be spearheading a space where people can still embrace eroticism, fantasy, sensuality. There are always people who want to be titillated or inspired.’
Under her forensic eye, Nocturnelle has come to life within two years; ‘I use my own money and ideas, I prefer not to be artistically challenged,’ she laughs. ‘It follows the variety show approach where the most storyline you get is the theme. Each ‘Stripscape’ is between 7 and 11 minutes as I read that is what Gypsy Rose Lee did. I was also inspired by a Paolo Coehlo book about sex called Eleven Minutes.’ Expect new levels of razzle dazzle, Nocturnelle is costumed by Von Teese’s regular collaborators Jenny Packham, Alexis Mabille, Catherine D’Lish but also debuts costumes by 20th Century Russian illustrator, Erte, from his last show Stardust, which Dita purchased a while back in an auction.
Since her 2002 book ‘Fetish Goddess Dita’ which explored the confidence glamour gave her, Dita’s audiences have shifted to prominently female, ‘I have always had a very strong LGBT following though, they were ahead of curve in understanding my form of burlesque, I think attracted to the frivolity and flamboyance’, this show is opened by drag queen, Ben De La Crème.
She concludes, ‘As an entertainer, I want to offer something different than what audiences are now fed on TV or in the movies.’
Dita Von Teese’s Nocturnelle is touring the world until August 2026, visit below for tickets.
