### Alexis Mabille Honors Dita Von Teese During Paris Couture Week
Paris Couture Week is always a spectacle of glamour and artistry, but this year, Alexis Mabille’s show at the Lido 2 Paris cabaret on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées was particularly memorable. The highlight of the evening was the tribute to the iconic burlesque performer, Dita Von Teese, who graced the event with her presence and performance.
The evening began with a runway show that showcased Mabille’s latest couture creations. The audience, filled with fashion enthusiasts and celebrities, was already buzzing with excitement. However, the true climax came when Dita Von Teese took the stage. In a surprise move, she closed the show with her legendary Champagne glass striptease, performed on the venue’s hydraulic stage, complete with a working fountain. This marked her first performance at the Lido since its acquisition by the Accor Group and its transformation into a musical theater, redesigned by Mabille himself.
Von Teese, dressed in a pale pink corset top with frothy netting sleeves and slim black pants, expressed her delight at returning to the Lido. “I was a big fan of the old Lido show, and it was really neat to see the room. I was very excited to know that the fountains were still there. And I got to splash like I never splashed before, because there it’s all water anyway. So yeah, it was fun,” she said.
This performance was particularly special as it was her first in Paris since her “Glamonatrix” tour at the Théâtre des Folies Bergère in 2021. While in the city, Von Teese planned to visit Violet Chachki’s guest residence at the Crazy Horse, where Chachki is making history as the first drag performer to grace the legendary cabaret’s stage. Von Teese reminisced about her own experiences at the Crazy Horse, where she was the first guest performer back in 2006. “It wasn’t so easy the first time, I’ll tell you. This is kind of before it was fashionable. It was a little bit of a relic and a lot of, just like, men tourists. And doing the rehearsals, I feel like the girls were kind of like, ‘What’s this girl doing here?’ You know, they didn’t look very happy about it,” she recalled.
The opening night of her performance at the Crazy Horse saw designers and celebrities flocking to the cabaret. “It breathed new life into it, and they all came up to me to thank me afterward where, an hour before, they were like, ‘This b—h, doing a show.’ It was very much a tough thing because you know, they do the shows 365 days a year, they don’t take Christmas off,” she continued. “Anyway, it was the start of a wonderful relationship.”
Von Teese recently completed an eight-month residency at the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas and is contemplating her next move, possibly another stint in Las Vegas next year.
The celebration at Caviar Kaspia following Mabille’s show was a star-studded affair. Guests included photographers Ali Mahdavi and Ellen Von Unwerth, Broadway producer Jordan Roth, creative director Fredrik Robertsson, model Emma Wiklund, socialite Suzanne Saperstein, filmmaker Vanessa Filho, and singer, actor, and artist Simon Buret. Actress Stefanie Powers, best known for her role as Jennifer Hart in the TV series “Hart to Hart,” also attended, coming straight from the Giorgio Armani Privé show.
Powers, who is deeply involved in conservation work with the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya, spoke passionately about the importance of regenerative agriculture. “We’ve lost the ability for the climate to recover its wonderful job of exchanging carbon for oxygen. It’s a very dangerous cliff edge that we’re functioning on,” she warned. “So if we work in conservation, we have to always complement with some kind of regeneration of habitat. If there’s no place for the animals to live in, what are we doing? They are the sketch for what’s going to happen to us, so we need to learn.”
After dinner, illustrator David Downton captured a memorable moment by photographing Von Teese and Powers on the restaurant’s spiral staircase, captioning the image “Legends only” on Instagram.
The evening was a testament to the enduring allure of Dita Von Teese and the creative brilliance of Alexis Mabille. Their collaboration brought a touch of old-world glamour to Paris Couture Week, reminding everyone of the timeless appeal of burlesque and high fashion.
Source: WWD, HuffPost
