Adoration - A Tribute to My Body

In honor of what I like to call "Happy, Healthy Breast Month", a.k.a. Breast Cancer Awareness month, I decided to write a tribute to my breasts.  Loving up my body, to me, is the most valuable kind of health insurance I can think of.  But once I got going, I thought, why stop there? The following is a tribute to the miracle of my feminine body, and to yours too. 

 

Adoration by Gil Elvgren

I adore My Body. 

It is so scrumptious and delicious, I just want to gobble myself up.

I love my legs. They are like the most elegant champagne flutes. I imagine that if they were a food, they would taste like lady fingers drizzled with chocolate and whipped cream.

I love my arms. I love the way they taper delicately at the wrist. I love their shape as I hold onto the subway rail. I love the way my muscles flex as I sway from side to side.

I love my breasts, they are like the ripest plum, hanging on a vine in Tuscany, warm from the sun.

I adore my hips. Their curves, the way I can grab the flesh on the bone. They give me a sense of home, like a crisp, brown Christmas turkey cooked with butter under the skin. Yum.

I love my Belly. I love the roundness of it, I love the density of it. I love how it stands by me, day after day. I love how authentically feminine it is.  I love having it massaged in a warm bath with oil underwater. I love how the Goddess lives in my belly, my center, my strength.

I LOVE my shoulders, my clavicle, and my decollete.My clavicle is like an Olympic ice skater. Graceful, elegant.  A perfect ten. My decollete, smooth like the frosting on top of a birthday cake. My shoulders, like the pillars in the Sistine Chapel, holding everything together with strength, grace and beauty.

I love my tresses. Like warm amber honey. Smooth, lustrous, sensuous. Perfect on their own, but also the perfect complement to my gorgeous face.

I love my face.  My eyes, like looking down an endless beach.  My lips, like perfect velvet pillows you just want to sink into. My skin, like the creamy froth on top of a cappuccino.

I love being a woman.

I love being me.

In the words of Doris Day, "I enjoy being a girl".

My Secret Weapon

Okay Darlings. You already know how much I love to share my hot little tips. But this time, I'm really gonna give it up. I'm introducing you to my Secret Weapon:. The Legend. The Bombshell. The Icon: Miss Veronica Varlow.

I first met Veronica in her Spellbinding Burlesque class at The New York School of Burlesque. From the moment you meet this woman you are under her spell. You can sense her magical qualities the instant you catch her sparkling, soulful, expertly lined eye.

Veronica is a master at seeing the beauty and power in every woman, and showing her how to embody that power in everything from eating cereal to dancing onstage. Her Charm School is designed to crank up your bulb from 40W to 100W in just a few short hours. One of our assignments in class was to write a love letter to ourselves, as if we were a famous writer describing his favorite muse.  For some reason I felt compelled to put mine on the internet.

My dearest, most darling inspiration,

That which inspires my every breath. That which reshapes me every moment.  That which lets me know that God, Goddess, Heaven, the Angels, are all alive and well.

I want you to know that every drop of you, every breath, every heartbeat, every thought, every word you speak is steeped deep in Divinity.

When you awaken, the Angels cry out in rapture.  When you retire, the moon takes it's slow, sweet time, as it doesn't want to miss a moment where it gets to caress your skin. 

Do me a favor.  Never go fast.  Go slow.  Take your time.  Do everything with this deliberate knowing of your magnificence. If you do this, we will all be OK.

I adore you.

This letter is the essence of what I love about Burlesque. Cultivation of your own self love and self- appreciation is not only approved of in the burlesque community, it is the price of admission. There aren't many places where you can celebrate the beauty, glamour and sheer frivolity of yourself from head to toe, but Burlesque, and specifically Veronica's class, is certainly one of them. So,  "if you're hot and you know it, and you really want to show it": run - don't walk - to the original Danger Dame.

Veronica's next session of  Charm School takes place on Sunday, September 19th from 12-6pm. Click here to enroll. Tell her Kitty sent you!

From Tightey-Whitey to Grown Up Goddess: A Burlesque Dancers Lingerie Love Story

Leave it to Beaver 2. Not exactly what you would expect to hear as a woman's earliest association with lingerie shopping. Particularly when the woman is a Burlesque dancer like me. Yet it was while watching this (mostly unmemorable) early 90's sitcom, sitting with a fold-up TV table at my lap and eating dinner, that I became aware that someday, somehow my ten-year-old girl body was going to transform into the body of a woman. And that it would require accessories.

In this particular episode of the show, Beav's tomboy daughter suddenly finds herself ready for her very first bra. Mom and Grandma take her to the department store for a virginal white trainer. Mayhem ensues as the girl's best friend tries to sneak two more-ahem-"adult" bras (red lace and black satin) into the dressing room.

When the show ended, I remember mustering the nerve to ask my mom when that day would come for me, while awkwardly trying to conceal my anticipation and excitement. Her response (a roll of the eyes and an "oh Lord") let me know this was a topic she'd been trying to avoid for as long as humanly possible. But a year or so later Mom and I made our own trip to the department store. I was dismayed to find that my expectation of a boutique filled with plush furnishings and padded velvet hangers was traded in for a square display of thin cardboard boxes filled with white cotton wonders. Still, I took what I could get.

When I got home from our shopping expedition that day, I quickly sequestered myself in my bedroom, and a whirlwind of feelings ensued as my white trainer and I shook hands for the first time. The elation of trying on not just a new piece of clothing, but a whole new body. The disappointment that there was no fanfare like beads or lace, just simple white cotton. And-in spite of the plain-ness-the shame of loving it just a little too much.

Four years later, I had added a few variations of the same into my collection. By now, my little white trainer and I were inseparable. It had become a second skin; a blanky of sorts. Until the day my best friend Tess and I were trying on back-to-school clothes at the mall, and she not-so-gently suggested I get measured for a new bra. I recall her exact words being something like, "You are popping out of that thing!!! What is that, a training bra or something?" Reluctantly, I followed her into the posh, pink, unimaginably sensuous Victoria's Secret. After a fateful encounter with sales girl and her measuring tape, my 34-A blanky bra, with its well-loved pilled fabric and ring around the under wire, was promptly cast out for a flashy, decadent new 36C.

As I think back on that day, it is incredibly significant to me that I could be walking around in a bra two cup sizes too small. That I could be so ignorant of my own body's development. And yet, it makes so much sense. I knew that as long as I held on to that bra, it meant I could hold off on becoming a woman. On going through the inevitable awkwardness of adolescent sexual discovery I knew was coming. If I didn't have a fancy bra on, I could never allow a wandering hand to sneak under my shirt. If I could pretend I didn't have breasts, I would never have to face the vulnerability that came with having them. Or face my anger and shame at being born a woman, in a body that was sinful, dirty and wrong.

Performing "Diamonds Are Forever"

Burlesque for me serves one purpose: Reclamation. Reclamation of the parts of me that are most powerful, and most sacred. There is beauty everywhere, in every woman. Burlesque, like lingerie, is a secret garden for celebrating that beauty. Burlesque finds beauty in the perfect and the imperfect. The flat bellies and the round ones. The 32AA's and the 42 G's. Beauty in the eyes of a performer as she spills over with determined confidence, or in the way an all-sequin dress can make a big, juicy round bottom sparkle. "Flaws" in Burlesque are never hidden. On the contrary, they become one's greatest asset. Sexuality is not only celebrated, it is flaunted. The more a woman loves herself onstage, the higher everyone goes. Even my training-bra-buyin' mom loves to come to my shows. (Me and my mom's evolution is quite a story, one I'll save for another time.)

Now I understand that lingerie is a way of approving, celebrating, and flaunting that innate beauty every single day. A way to make love to my delicious curves; not because I am perfect. Not because I earned the right to wear something sexy by fitting into a Barbie doll body (which is what I used to think had to happen for someone to deserve to wear La Perla). I indulge my body in lingerie simply because I am a woman. And it is my birthright to feel flirtatious, sexy and sensual. Lingerie reminds me not to take life so seriously. The right bra and panties can turn grey skies blue for any girl. Whether her last name is Cleaver, or Cavalier.

What about you readers? What was your first bra shopping experience like?

This article was originally written for my dear friend Margaret's fabulous company: The Lingerie Diet.  Check her out at http://www.thelingeriediet.com/ (Only click if you are interested in feeling like a Goddess, adoring your body, and becoming a more sensuous woman.)

How to be a Pin-Up Girl on the Beach

Few things in life turn me on like hitting the beach in my sexiest pin-up girl attire. It is truly a thrill I look forward to all year. Nothing makes me feel sexier thank a high waisted bikini, or a halter one piece in a retro print. Mmmm Hmmm.

People always ask me where how I create my vintage retro look on the beach. Well, as you know, I won't spill the sauce on my tips and tricks for just anybody. But the warm weather always makes my lips a little loose. So, just for you my beauties, here are some of Kitty Cavalier's hottest tips for becoming a Pin-Up Goddess on the beach:

Retro Swimwear

My Baby Jo the red polka dot bikini and the cherry one piece are an absolute STAPLE in my summer wardrobe

Stop Staring everything on this website is a must have. they usually increase their inventory later in the summer, but right now there's a hot deal running on an adorable black two piece

Punk Saucy little numbers with that pack some pizazz

Pin Up Girl Clothing Don't go to this website without your drool cloth held firmly in place

A Great Tan

There is absolutely, hands down, no better place in the world for an instant tan than Brazil Bronze Glow Bar. In minutes you'll be kissed by a golden tan that will leave all your friends green with envy! Print out this blog post and receive 20% off all services for the month of July! Now do I put out for you or what?

Red Lips
Whether you are lounging on the sand or para-sailing through the sky, red lipstick is a must. My new obsession is Sinner Red by Lipstick Queen. It is a bright, 1000 watt, juicy-strawberry red and makes the perfect cherry-on-top of your pin up sundae!

And of course, to keep your hips swayin' and your curves a stayin', come indulge your Inner Seductress in my signature burlesque class, The Big Reveal. Bring your new bathing suit! It'll be just like the Hamptons, only sexier.

With Love and a Tassel Twirl,

Kitty