Seductive signature act: Dita bathes in a huge Martini glass

Elegance: Blowing a kiss at her fans

While our television schedules groan under the weight of reality TV shows and where a virtue has been made out of ordinary people doing ordinary things, there is at least one woman who has bucked the trend.

Dita Von Teese, whose retro chic brings to mind the old school glamour of stars such as Ava Gardner and Betty Grable, has ditched mundanity and with the aid of corsetry and a little help from the hair dye bottle has turned herself into a living doll.

She is widely credited as single-handedly reviving the dying art of burlesque.

Old-fashioned girl: Dita Von Teese

Just five years ago few would have recognised a feather dance if it had got up and tickled them.

Now Dita has performed for everyone from the royal jeweller, Garrard, to the cast of the film Ocean's Thirteen.

She blushes at the acclaim, but admits it is, "wonderful to hear because I've been performing it since the early Nineties - way, waybefore it became hip and cool. I just did it because I loved it".

As she wafts into the Magnolia restaurant on LA's Sunset Boulevard, it is evident she is in off-duty mode - though in Dita's case, "off-duty" is a relative thing.

In a black dress, flat shoes and with her jet black hair teased around an immaculately made-up face, Dita so resembles a porcelain doll that I'm tempted to suggest a table inside to protect her from the harmful rays of the sun.