Dita Von Teese- New York Times

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A Night Out With

Dita Von Teese: No Blushes From This Bride

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Published: October 23, 2005

DITA VON TEESE is an old-fashioned girl. Her voice is quiet and her demeanor understated; her most conspicuous habit is the way she pats her perfectly coiffed hair. About the only time she lights up in conversation is when she's talking about the research she has done for her job, or when she's talking about her fiancé.

Rahav Segev for The New York Times

Dita Von Teese in her hotel room, and in $5 million worth of diamonds.

Her job, as a world-traveling burlesque stripper, involves peeling down to her pasties in a giant martini glass or astride a rhinestone-bedecked horse. And that fiancé, whom she is marrying in December, is Marilyn Manson.

"I just have a maid of honor, and he has a best man," she said. "And a worst man. He had to have that."

After a whirlwind trip through Europe, where she attended fashion shows and disrobed for a party given by Louis Vuitton, the marshmallow-skinned Ms. Von Teese, 33, was in New York last week to perform at a benefit for the New York Academy of Art. It was a performance she was excited about, she said, because she would be wearing $5 million in diamonds in the few places she would be wearing anything at all.

On Wednesday night, after a fitting in her room, she was standing outside waiting for a cab, and the only diamonds left were on her marble-size engagement ring. Otherwise she was dolled up in her usual Betty Grable best: a black Louis Vuitton dress that revealed only her pinup girl curves, pearls, a knee-length Moschino fur coat and her own brand of seamed stockings (which she sells, used and unused, on her Web site, www.dita.net).

"I don't know a lot of people in New York," said Ms. Von Teese, who lives just outside Los Angeles. So dinner, at Bette in West Chelsea, was cobbled together by her manager, Melissa Dishell, from acquaintances and half-acquaintances: someone Ms. Von Teese knew from her trips to London; an interior designer she did not know well; and a woman from Sirius radio she did not know well either.

Everyone likes to say they don't go out much, but with Ms. Von Teese, you believe it. She remained mostly quiet while nightclubs were a topic of conversation, but a few minutes later she was bubbly with talk of Evangeline the Oyster Girl, a New Orleans burlesque dancer of the 1940's and 50's who dyed her hair green.

Dinner was served. After tasting and disapproving of her chicken, Ms. Von Teese asked if this place was supposed to be good. Back at their home, amid the stuffed heads and skeletons, she and Mr. Manson prefer eating in. She often makes pot roast.

The conversation at the table turned to the wedding plans.

"Everybody asks me, 'Can I wear black?' " Ms. Von Teese said. "I said: 'Of course you can wear black. Whose wedding do you think you're going to?' "

The pace of preparations was picking up, she said. In London, Ms. Von Teese had looked at hats; in California, one of her sisters was looking into dresses; the search was on for the entertainment.

"Manson said, 'I don't know what I want to do for my bachelor party,' " she said.

Ms. Dishell said: "He's marrying his bachelor party."

After dinner the next stop was a promotional party for Motorola a few blocks up the street. No one seemed particularly interested, but Ms. Von Teese was on the guest list, and since it was nearby, and since there might be free phones in the goody bags. ...

Well, there weren't. Ms. Von Teese spent the party drinking vodka and cranberry juice, and sitting as stiff as a librarian among the partygoers. Half an hour later, a little after midnight, she was back outside, waiting for a car.

Which was just as well. The next day, before her striptease, she had to pick out a wedding cake.