Photo by Estelle Packer

Looking around, jaws drop open everywhere I turn; wide eyes stare, hypnotised by the woman on stage. With her pouting red lips blowing kisses and her nipple tassels swinging in time to the music, glamour incarnate is busy "burning her image onto every retina" in the audience. That was the night Immodesty came to town.

Words by Clare Howdle

(First published in Stranger 011 - August 2006)

The undisputed Queen of British Burlesque, Miss Immodesty Blaize has strutted her corseted stuff up and down the country for ten years, wowing audiences with her curves and seducing them with her moves. For those of you not au fait (au fait??) with the burlesque genre, a basic routine (which Immodesty is quick to point out is far from basic - being unique, expertly executed and costing around £30,000 to put together) involves the performer decked out in fineries and teasing the audience as she slowly gets undressed in the most alluring way possible. Each burlesque dancer has a gimmick or trademark - in Immodesty's case a 6ft glittering rocking horse which she flies about on as she strips - and glamour, glitz, but above all old-fashioned style (clothes on or off) are the words de jour. This is stripping with style - and anyone who's anyone wants a piece, from James Brown to Goldfrapp, from the guests at the Berkley Square Ball to the relatively highbrow audiences of this year's Port Eliot Lit Fest in Cornwall.

It may be the darling of the bourgeoisie now, but burlesque's roots grew far from the aristocratic doorstep of the likes of Katherine and Peregrine St German, hosts of the Lit Fest. "Burlesque is basically a form of ironic cabaret - originally taking the piss out of very high art forms and making them accessible for the lower classes," Immodesty explains the day after her mind-blowing performance, as we sit in the Orangery garden sipping cider from champagne glasses. "Performers would make it bawdy and erotic, with a real blue undertone - so it's interesting that presenting burlesque in 2006 the pendulum has swung and I am essentially taking what has for some time been seen as a lowclass form of entertainment and performing it for the rich and famous."

I am bombarded for a further 20 minutes with details about the growth and development of the burlesque genre, the debate about when the first strip was performed, when the first nipple tassels were worn... but it is hard to concentrate because Immodesty seems to be battling with herself for centre stage. Each phrase is beaten into submission by a dramatic flourish of neon painted fingernails or a shake of her perfectly coiffed mane with attention demanding regularity. My previous ponderings about whether the glamorous diva on stage would be different in the light of day were quashed in my first five minutes with her - whether dancing in suspenders or animatedly talking about herself, Immodesty's body is always the star of the show.

Photo by Estelle Packer

"I blossomed at a time when Kate Moss and Jodie Kidd were all the rage and I had tits and an arse and I was like, what am I going to do with these?" she explains of how she first got into burlesque performing. "I grew up on a diet of Ava Gardener and Sofia Loren films, so I kind of understood that that was how women were supposed to look. I thought, surely I need to do something that embraces the shape I am." There is no doubt that Immodesty's performances do just that. Throughout her two seven-minute shows the night before (seven minutes, is apparently, "the perfect length for a routine, anything more becomes arrogant") accentuation was the name of the game. The reverse strip saw her wake up on a chaise longue and playfully get dressed, exposing areas of flesh or pulling the sheet tight to show off her assets with a cheeky 'ooh' and a wink for good measure.

"The trick is that it is all in the tease; I am completely naked under the sheet but you never see anything," Immodesty explains, although she does admit that a gust of wind at last night's performance might have given the audience more of an eyeful than planned. "The intention is to imply," she laughs, "our sexuality is the most, exciting creative thing we have to play with so why go straight to the end and get it all out when there is so much in between that is interesting and mysterious and erotic?" In fact sometimes, although the strip is integral to what she does, she doesn't strip at all. "I did a job for Christian Dior where all I did was remove a pair of gloves and men were looking away all coy - you know you can make someone tremble by just pinging a glove off your fingertip."

But it's not just about pressing the audience's buttons; there's more depth to Immodesty's motivations. "I find burlesque empowering because instead of all being told we have to be one type, showgirls all have individual characters and body shapes. It's about taking the things that are special with you as an individual and feeling good about them - that is a really important thing." She is keen to stress that the promotion of a positive body image is something that really drives her, because it's not just Immodesty that feels good about how she looks. "I am not a skinny bag of bones and women find that refreshing and it means that they are more supportive of what I do because I am promoting a bit more of a healthy attitude to body image - I really embrace my curves, you know, and make it clear that I want to look great and feel great for me not for anyone else, and that that is ok. I have received some amazing fan mail from women," she continues, as if trying to win an argument, "Women tend to come up to me after a show and say 'Wow that was fantastic.'"

Immodesty's personality seems dominated by her self-belief and confidence - but that is hardly surprising for a woman who takes her clothes off for a living. And fair's fair; it's not just Immodesty that believes in what she can do. This year, she took Las Vegas by storm, winning the Miss Exotic World Debut category, the first Brit to win the title and the only Brit competing, she hastens to point out. Back in the UK she took time out from wowing audiences across the country to concentrate on wowing audiences in the West End with a burlesque show that she developed and headlined in herself. "I did 200 shows and was seen by 25,000 people in the period of six months," she states proudly, eager to highlight the level of stagecraft and sheer hard graft involved in what she does. "You can't just stick on a corset, buy a cheap boa and just walk up and down and take your knickers off. That ain't burlesque. I write all my own material, choreograph my routines, design all my own costumes and mix my own music," she continues in an effort to convey how hard she works. "I spend a lot of time making it look effortless, much in the way that a swan swims in the water - it glides along but underneath it's little legs are paddling away."

Immodesty is at the top of her tree. Next week she is performing at the Cartier Polo, next month she is writing a book to "pass on her knowledge to others", and next year we can expect to see some sensational new routines that she has been working on. "I never stop. Even when I am out shopping I am still working, I'll see a particular haircut that I like and think 'must try and do that'. It's continuous, but I guess that is what being an artist is all about."

One thing is for sure, for Kelly Fletcher, former television producer and head girl of a convent school, it seems there is nothing more important than being Immodesty.

www.immodestyblaize.com