The mundane reality genre has overtaken not only your television set but the adult-entertainment industry too. Girls are going wild, and their boyfriends, equipped with tiny DVD cameras, are catching them as they do-do that voodoo that they do so well, or poorly ... doesn't matter. These dimly lit, story-free productions make Deep Throat look like Gone with the Wind. And so, with every 1 Night in Paris and other movies of its ilk, a little more of the old bedroom mystery is peeled away.

But just when you thought all was lost, along comes burlesque superheroine Dita Von Teese, a curvaceous, alabaster-skinned, raven-haired, immaculately coiffed stripper with a fondness for retro fashions and the attention to detail to do it right. Dita doesn't bump, she doesn't grind, and she certainly doesn't do that thing with the pole. She doesn't even quite take it all off, stripping down, with subtlety and a sense of stagecraft, to a G-string and pasties, and leaving the rest to the imagination.

"I've danced nude in the past with my feather fans, because that's how Sally Rand did it," Dita says, invoking the name of her favorite stripper from bygone days. "But even with her, sometimes a nipple would pop out. People can end up seeing more than what you want them to see, so I don't dance nude so much anymore. Some people are even uneasy at the idea that you're removing a glove, because of what it insinuates."

IRONICALLY, PERHAPS, VOGUE NAMED VON TEESE 2004'S 13THBEST-DRESSED WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

With her short, sweet, highly imaginative routines, Dita has lately been wowing all kinds of people—designers Marc Jacobs, Christian Louboutin, and Roland Mouret, who are perennially on the lookout for new fashion trends bubbling up from the underground; celebrities such as Elton John, Jade Jagger, Cameron Diaz, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Carmen Electra, and Enrique Iglesias; and middle managers who want a little romantic fantasy to go along with their scotch-and-soda (and woody). See Dita douse herself with a green olive sponge while taking a very silly bath in a giant martini glass; see her naughtily take a ride upon a bejeweled carousel horse; see her stand tippy-toed on a 12-foot Art Deco crescent moon as silver stars fall from a night sky. In a jaded time, she winkingly reminds her viewers that sex can be a fun and even sublime experience, rather than a drab pursuit of sensation for its own sake.

Ironically, perhaps, Vogue named her 2004's 13th-best-dressed woman in the world. She rose to No. 2 style icon in a recent survey of 1,000 fashion-industry people conducted by Harpers & Queen. Not bad for a girl who started out a small-town blonde from Michigan named Heather Sweet. ("It's my real name, I swear," she says.) With that hot-to-trot billing, her looks, and her willingness to take off her clothes, she could have ended up a run-of-the-mill porn star (and did appear in a few XXX videos, among them Pin Ups 2 and Debauchery 8). But from an early age, this child of the 1970s found herself enchanted with the glamour of Hollywood's mid-century golden age. Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Cyd Charisse, and Gene Tierney were her gals, as well as the great Gypsy Rose Lee and pinup princess Bettie Page.

Asked how she developed her ideas about burlesque, Dita says, "I watched a lot of MGM musicals and I imagined what it could be like in my head. Then, later, when I actually saw some old burlesque footage, it was a little rough looking, and not quite as glamorous as I'd wanted it to be. So I had to learn it my own way. Sally Rand's act was a bit like what I do, but Tempest Storm and the other bump-and-grind girls and tassel-twirlers, that doesn't really suit my personality."

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Now planning a December wedding with her intended, Goth-metal devil Marilyn Manson (who applies his own makeup with a heavier hand than she), Dita must be seen live to be properly appreciated. After toiling at burlesque events with names such as the Rubber Ball and Teaseorama, she has recently graduated to perform at corporate parties for Louis Vuitton, Garrard jewelers, and Martini & Rossi; at private functions for Jacobs and Louboutin; and at Elton John's Life Ball 2005 benefit. She has also gone into business selling her own perfumes, lipsticks, and shampoos.

Not that she's above working both sides of the street. Undergarment fetishists can purchase Dita's used stockings—in a sealed plastic bag—from her Web site at $50 a pair. The site warns persnickety customers: "All stockings are worn by Dita, and most likely will have runs or picks!"

If she had the budget to work with, Dita says she would put on an extravaganza in the tradition of the old Ziegfeld Follies, only with the striptease front and center. "There are all these Vegas shows and they're really cheesy," she says. "My dream is to have a full-length show with the most talented set designers and clothing designers, a live orchestra—it's something that definitely needs to be done. No one is doing a show where you don't say, 'This is so 80s.' I'm thinking I would like to open in Paris. That's a perfect place for me to have a beautiful, decadent revue."