Dita von Teese Channels Pure Old School Glamor

Dita von Teese has successfully managed to put fresh meaning into the words "old school glamor". The dark-haired beauty with the porcelain skin and the perfectly made-up face was born in a small town in America and managed her spectacular transformation without any help from world-famous stylists. Unlike the current Hollywood beauty queens, she morphed from a pretty and shy blond girl into an attractive brunette on sheer determination and with a little assistance from some old-school accessories such as vintage clothes, ivory powder and corsets in particular. On her own, she managed to effectively revive the seemingly long-lost art of burlesque, an achievement for which she is widely credited.

However, Dita von Teese does not come across as a vain or arrogant lady. In a recent interview with The Daily Mail, the performer talks about her youthful beginnings, her own shyness and her transformation into one of the most recognizable faces in today's entertainment industry. "I've always been fascinated with the idea of transformation," she confesses. "I'd look at pictures of Rita Hayworth and be captivated. I was always shy as a young girl, but wearing my hair and doing my make-up a certain way transformed me and it became a hobby to turn myself into a cartoon character," she admits.

Dita performed at parties for the likes of Jade Jagger and the Marquess of Bath's son Ceawlin, and also modeled for such famously exclusive designers as Jean Paul Gautier and Marc Jacobs. As a result, she confesses she exercises a strict control over her own public appearances. "I know the picture the paparazzi want is me coming out of Starbucks in jeans with my hair all messy, but that's just not going to happen," she admits. "I just think that when you take a minute to look your best, you get what you want. I pretty much get what I want," she adds.

As to her day to day attitude, Dita proclaims herself shy "and that always confuses people because they say, well, how can you be shy and still be up on stage doing the kind of dances you do? But most performers are shy and I still go to parties and feel nervous talking to people," she confesses. Lucky for us, Dita's shyness doesn't stop her from doing what she knows best. "If you'd asked me at 20, I just wouldn't have comprehended the fact that I'd still be doing it at 35. But I'm in better shape and better at what I do now, so I'm just going to evolve appropriately rather than say a time when I should stop." Fingers crossed that won't happen for a long, long time from now.