CHAMPAGNE FOR ALL: A glamorous crowd gathered at Caviar Kaspia to toast couturier Alexis Mabille following his show at the Lido 2 Paris cabaret on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées during Paris Couture Week.
The guest of honor was Dita Von Teese, who surprised guests by closing the runway show with her iconic Champagne glass striptease on the venue’s hydraulic stage, complete with a working fountain.
It was her first time back at the Lido since it was acquired by Accor Group and reopened last year as a musical theater, with a new interior design by Mabille, minus the topless dancers that made it world famous.
“I was a big fan of the old Lido show and so it was really neat to see the room, and 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,” said Von Teese, dressed in a pale pink corset top with frothy netting sleeves and slim black pants.
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It was the first time she performed the act in the French capital since bringing her “Glamonatrix” tour to the Théâtre des Folies Bergère in 2021. While in town, Von Teese planned to check out Violet Chachki’s guest residence at the Crazy Horse.
Chachki is making history as the first drag performer to grace the legendary cabaret’s stage. Von Teese recalled that she was the first ever guest performer at the Crazy Horse back in 2006, going on to do four residencies at the venue.
“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 said.
On opening night, designers and celebrities descended on the cabaret to catch Von Teese’s act.
“It breathed new life into it and they all came up to me to thank me afterwards where, an hour before, they were like, ‘This bitch, 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. “Now I’m trying to decide what I want to do next,” she said, adding that she’s mulling another stint in Sin City next year.
On Tuesday evening, it was time to indulge in some real Champagne bubbles for guests including photographers Ali Mahdavi and Ellen Von Unwerth; Broadway producer Jordan Roth; creative director Fredrik Robertsson; model Emma Wiklund, a.k.a. Emma S of “Too Funky” video fame; socialite Suzanne Saperstein; filmmaker Vanessa Filho and singer, actor and artist Simon Buret.
Stefanie Powers, the actress best known for her role as Jennifer Hart in the TV series “Hart to Hart,” came straight from the Giorgio Armani Privé show, accompanied by jeweler Henri Sillam, a longtime friend.
She planned to also attend the Elie Saab and Patou shows while in Paris, but is focused mainly on her work with the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya, specifically 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?” she continued. “They are the sketch for what’s going to happen to us, so we need to learn.”
After dinner, illustrator David Downton corraled Von Teese and Powers for a souvenir photo on the restaurant’s spiral staircase. “Legends only,” he captioned his images on Instagram.
