What Does Dita Von Teese Really Think of the New Corset Trend?

At the Forty Five Ten cocktail party in Dallas last night, Dita Von Teese looked for all the world like a Midas-touched Snow White. Alabaster was her skin, crimson her lips, raven black her hair, and gold her cape and dress by Roland Mouret. This was holiday dressing par excellence. “I love golds and silvers and reds and greens,” Von Teese said. “I just like cliché sparkly things. I like a 1950s Christmas.”

Seeing as Von Teese was photographed in a bejeweled back-lacing corset for The Eccentrics, a new book put together by the luxury boutique and published by Assouline, we were curious about the performer’s take on the current corsetry trend. “It’s hard for me to relate to any of that. What they are selling are waist trainers,” Von Teese explained, “and there’s a big difference between [that] and a couture corset, which is what I’ve been wearing for the past 25 years. [It’s] a completely different ball game, and that is true body modification. I can’t speak for these elastic waist trainers . . . I can’t see how it could really work.”

As for these new corsets being seen as a symbol of women’s liberation, Von Teese took the broad view. “One person’s empowerment is another person’s degradation, that’s the way I see it,” she said. “Like with what I do, with striptease: One person may find it inspiring and empowering, another person will say that it’s demeaning and degrading, so I think there’s an interpretation for everything.”