A juicy post came up yesterday on TLo – photos of Dita in Harper’s Bazaar Russia, accompanied by some “slightly offensive” commentary:

We realize that this look is her signature look and she’d be nothing without it, but she’s getting awfully close to the date where she’s going to age right out of it. You can pull off that retro burlesque thing in your 20s and 30s, but in your 40s? It’s gonna have the stink of desperation. She’s not there yet, but she’s definitely lost the dewy quality she used to have. Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that a woman’s desirability ends when the first digit becomes a 4, but it’s not always a good idea to be working the same look for over 15 years, especially when it’s such a distinct look. We figure the expiration date is somewhere within the next 5 years. After that, she’ll be entering Ann Miller territory.

So my first question was, where’s the problem? Is it the fact that she’s been rocking the same look for so long, or that the look happens to be retro? I think the answer might be a little of both, plus a third factor.

First, the sameness: it’s never good to let your style fossilize into a kind of uniform. But I don’t think she’s guilty of this – I haven’t exactly been keeping a close eye on her career, but from the pics I’ve seen of her here and there, she’s wearing different silhouettes, hairdos, colors, keeping it old-fashioned but diverse within that style. Perhaps to people looking at her with mainstream fashion eyes, her particular look is so different from everything else out there, they’re not as attenuated to the nuances the way someone wearing a very unique point of view all the time would be, and all the vintage vintage vintage looks the same to them. She always shows up in something old-world? Well, that’s Dita. That’s what she does. And it’s to her credit that she didn’t drop her individuality in favor of jumping on to whatever trend is hot at the moment, or even worse, deciding to go with the red-carpet blandness of “safe.”

Then, the retroness. I’ve read that she drives a vintage car, she knows all the dances from back in the day, plus all that showgirl talent, this is her life. She got famous and used it to create the glamorous world she dreamed of. Could you imagine her suddenly pressing herself into the modern/generic-chic mold just because she has to “grow up?” It would suck to wake up and get hit with that during the morning blogtrawl: “Oh yeah, by the way everybody, Dita’s gone normal.”

I don’t think she’d have any problem sticking with her style if she decides to put away the Marilyn Monroe and break out the Katharine Hepburn. Slide away from the pinup wiggling into a look that plays upon worldliness and experience. The pic above with her hand to her face? Still has a touch of the ingenue about it, and doesn’t work, because girl, we know you know things. Show it off.

And it’s this persona shell that’s the third issue, and one she has in common with her ex – she and Marilyn Manson are creatures of artifice, and it gets difficult to maintain that facade as you get older – the hard black hair dye, the hard black eyebrows, the chinawhite face, tough to do when one’s skin inevitably begins to slacken. This I think is where the problem of “caricature” takes root – not in someone’s cherished style, but their exaggeration of it. Some of TLo’s commenters mentioned the possibility of softening her look, and I think she’d look amazing going back to her natural blonde shade. Which would also solve the problem of sameness.

It can’t be easy to be hitting this point in her career, where everything she’s accumulated, dancing costumes and oversized props and all the burlesque steps are soon headed for the mothballs (or ebay) – the lady herself has said that she doesn’t want to be known as the stripper who’s too old. But this is a point where all her sophistication and expertise can come out and shine. She could put together a coffee-table book on the art of vintage fashion full of how-to advice. She could create her own lingerie line and it wouldn’t have the celebrity-playing-at-fashion-designer stink all over it, it could actually be good.

I don’t know if she’s still working the “I like everyone to think I’m their girl” shtick, but frankly I’d love to see her drop the mask and go totally gimlet-eyed – rising from rubber fetish videos to Vivienne Westwood’s gowns, marrying and divorcing the last great rock star, gods know what craziness she’s seen from her side of the stage. She most definitely does not have to keep slapping on pancake to stay interesting. Hopefully she’ll realize a lot of us are waiting for her to call Neil Strauss and get her memoir written.