Dita Stripteese - erotic art by Harper Collins - review by TacoODoom

Dita Von Teese “Stripteese”

So, I'm given the task of writing a review of a “book” with no words, and I shall endeavor to do this justice. Allow me to preface by saying I am a HUGE fan of Dita and burlesque in general, I mean boobs, shiny-sparkly-flashy things, naked ladies, and retro-sensuality, what is not to love?! You can imagine my child-like glee as I shredded the packaging to get at this book! I was not let down in the least! What this “book” is, in reality, a very swanky collection of 3 high class flip books of Dita's famous burlesque acts. Specifically her often imitated but never duplicated “Martini Glass”, one entitled “The Classic” and one of her newer acts “The Bird of Paradise”, which features her one-of-a-kind fuchsia pheasent feather fans.

The front cover is matte pink with glossy detail of heavily embroidered and beaded lace, the Dita logo and “stripteese” is raised and flocked in purple velvet, the back cover, under the insert, features a large picture of Dita looking over her shoulder decked out in a fuchsia corset and russian net birdcage veiled pill-box hat. The insert itself offers some sample pics of the books contents and a brief bio of both Dita and Sheryl Nields the photographer. When you un-tie the eggplant purple satin ribbon and open the book you find a purple velvet nest for three cute flip books that have the same embellished lace motif as the front cover. I loved the little touches, the pattern of the lace the fact each depression for the flip book had a little word in it, “splash” for the martini glass, “swing” for the birdcage, and “seduce” for the classic.

Each book contains tons of beautiful detailed pictures of Dita doing her thang! They flip in each direction, e.g. flipped front to back looking at the right side pages or flipped back to front looking at the left side pages. I found the heavy weight paper a bit tricky to flip to achieve the “movie” effect, and it took a few run throughs to get it to work properly, unfortunately, this warps the books, so if your trying to save this as a collectors item you may not want to flip the books, but just thumb through the pretty pictures slowly. The “Classic” and “Martini Glass” are left to right justified and the “Bird of Paradise” is vertically justified, I found this one to be the hardest to enjoy as the picture takes up the full length of the page and as your flipping you only really see the bottom of the picture.

Overall I really enjoyed this little collection of flip books and found them immensely entertaining. My husband thought I was nuts sitting there flipping them and giggling madly, but eventually I got him to concede that the concept was pretty cool and they were well done. I'd say that any fan of Dita, or burlesque enthusiast would enjoy this more than your average joe, but I think it's something any fan of scantily clad women can appreciate. I know I'm thrilled to own it and will treasure it for a long time, no matter how much of a dork that makes me :) .

While the little flip books have started to show some curling due to frequent use, they've held up admirably, and now have a special place on the top shelf of my book case.