The Love & Sex Issue

Simply Irresistible

For boudoir photographer Stacie Frazier, making average women feel like Playboy Barbies is all in a day’s work

By Sarah Feldberg | Photography by Stacie Frazier

“This is not about a man’s approval. This photo is just for me, so when I’m old and my tits are in my shoes I can look at it and say, ‘Damn, I was hot.’”

—Samantha, Sex and the City

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In 2001, when Sex and the City’s leggy blonde sexpot decided to have naked portraits taken, it seemed like something only Samantha would have the proverbial balls to do. Turns out, she was just ahead of her time. Today, politicians and waitresses, housewives and attorneys are all slipping out of their clothes and in front of the camera for boudoir photo shoots with one basic goal: feeling gorgeous.

“I was the fat funny girl in high school. I never was one that was very comfortable in my own skin at all.” This is Dacia Weese, a 37-year-old St. George, Utah, mother of two who works for a mortgage company and says things like “holy cow” and “oh my gosh” with total sincerity. In 2010, a “super-brave” friend booked a session with Vegas-based boudoir photographer Stacie Frazier, and suggested Weese have her photo taken, too.

“I was terrified,” she recalls. “I was sick to my stomach for a whole week before.”

But in the hands of Frazier and her team, Weese had a revelation. “I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘Ho-ly sh*t. It’s Playboy Barbie,’” she says. “I literally walked out of the bathroom and said, ‘Nakeds first.’”

That kind of confidence has a lot to do with the woman behind the camera. Frazier, who shot this week’s cover, got into boudoir photography five years ago, before there was an accepted name for the practice of taking sexy, professional portraits of regular women posed like lingerie models or Playboy Bunnies. Slowly, she grew her hobby into Haute Shots, a full-service boudoir photography company that uses professional hair and makeup artists, ravishing lingerie and swank hotel rooms to help women ditch their inhibitions and rediscover their sexiness.

That was certainly the case for Leslie Stein, a 39-year-old author, life coach and former West Point cadet. “Going into the session, I would have described myself with a million different words — confident, strong and all these great things — but I never in a million years would have ever, ever, ever used the word sexy to describe myself.”

For Stein, the confidence she felt in front of the lights reached further into her life. “I started dating higher-quality people. My business started doing really well. I was willing to say no to stuff that just wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was related to the session somehow. It allowed me to see myself as successful and sexy.”

Weese is dreaming of another session and says every woman should experience the thrill of boudoir. And like Samantha, when our tits are in our Jimmy Choos or Nikes, we can pull out that photo and think, “Damn, I was hot.”

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