Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Hump Day Hottie

This weeks HDH was born Heather Renee Sweet on September 28, 1972 to a manicurist mother and machinist father.

HDH is well known for her fascination with 1940s cinema and classic retro style. This began at a young age and was fostered by her mother, who would buy clothes for her to dress up in. Her mother was a fan of old, Golden-era Hollywood films, and it was from her that she developed a fascination with the actresses of that day, especially Betty Grable, an actress that she frequently cites as her favorite.

She was classically trained as a ballet dancer from an early age, and danced solo at age thirteen for a local ballet company. Though she originally wanted to be a ballerina, she states that "By 15 I was as good as I’d ever be."

As a teenager, HDH's mother took her to buy her first bra, made from plain white cotton, and gave her a plastic egg containing a pair of wrinkly, flesh-colored tights. HDH says she was disappointed as she had been hoping to receive beautiful lacy garments and stockings, of the type she had glimpsed in her father's Playboy magazines . This fueled her passion for lingerie. She worked in a lingerie store as a salesgirl when she was fifteen, and eventually as a buyer. This was where she got her first corset. She has been fond of wearing elaborate lingerie such as corsets and stockings since.

In college, HDH studied historic costuming and aspired to work as a stylist for period films. She is a trained costume designer.

HDH began her career in a local strip club when she was nineteen. Disappointed with the lack of originality in all the other strippers' acts, HDH created a vintage-inspired look, with beehive hairstyle and elbow-length gloves, confusing and fascinating the clientele.

It was during this time at the strip club that she began some glamor modeling, before she eventually became a fetish model . Her retro pin-up look, frequently emulating Bettie Page in photo shoots, set her apart from most other fetish models.

HDH achieved some level of recognition in the fetish world as a tightlacer. Through the wearing of a corset for many years, she had reduced her natural waistline to 22 inches, and can be laced down as far as 16 and a half inches. A diminutive person already, she stands at only 5'3" and weighs 105 pounds.

It is HDH's burlesque routines that she is best known for, and is frequently dubbed "the Queen of Burlesque" in the press. She began performing burlesque in 1993 and, as a proponent of New Burlesque, has helped to popularize its revival. In her own words, she "puts the tease back into striptease" with long, elaborate dance shows with props and characters, often inspired by 1930s and 1940s musicals and films. Some of her more famous dances include numbers involving a carousel horse, a giant powder compact, a filigree heart and a claw-toe bathtub with a working shower head. Her feather fan dance, inspired by burlesque dancer Sally Rand , features feather fans that are the largest in the world and are now on display in Hollywoods' Museum of Sex. Her signature show features a giant martini glass.

In recent years, the fashion world has come to accept HDH and her retro look, and she has appeared on a number of best-dressed lists. HDH states that she never uses a stylist. "The one time I hired a stylist, they picked up a pair of my 1940s shoes and said, "These would look really cute with jeans." I immediately said, 'You’re out of here.'" She does her own make-up, and dyes her naturally blonde hair black at home.

HDH currently resides in Hollywood. She is a collector of vintage china, particularly eggcups and tea sets, and she drives a 1939 Chrysler New Yorker.

HDH became somewhat of a household name when she married shock rocker Marilyn Manson on November 28, 2005. After filing for divorce in December, 2006 she left their house empty-handed on Christmas Eve, and was unable to get in touch with Mason to inform him of her intentions of a divorce. Citing irreconcilable differences and a relationship with another girl as her reasons for divorcing Manson.

Although this weeks HDH wears vintage furs, she is currently spokewoman for a PETA campaign called ABC (Animal Birth Control).



















This weeks Hump Day Hottie is ~ Dita Von Teese

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. Only the first picture showed up. TO bad she married Marilyn Manson. Wow

Churlita said...

She's very interesting. I thought she was in her twenties. She looks great.

laura b. said...

That is a very high maintainence look that she sports. Definitely something admirable about her.

minijonb said...

i knew it was DVT halfway through the first sentence. don't ask me why i know this...

=:-)

Jaybird said...

Humminah humminah humminah... I am speechless. I like!