Most divorcées would rather forget the day their marriage ended. Others, like Marie Lollis, want to memorialize it — preferably while looking hot as hell.
The newly single South Carolinian went viral this month for commemorating her divorce with a sassy middle-finger of a photo shoot. Clad in leather booty shorts and knee-high boots made for walking, she burns a photo from her wedding and sips from a wine glass etched with the words “Boy, bye.”
Local photographers say that in recent years they’ve seen an increase in clients asking for photo shoots after breakups and divorces.
“Lately, people are doing it . . . to celebrate and discover their own sexual power,” Laura Boyd, owner of the Chelsea photo studio Own Your Sexy, tells The Post. She credits the uptick to the increased acceptability of “empowering” social media photos — where split-up snaps are typically posted — and by what she views as a societal push to actually feel proud of, not ashamed by, newfound marital independence.
‘People are doing it … to celebrate and discover their own sexual power.’
That’s how it went for one of Boyd’s clients, Zuleika Acosta. Hers was an accidental breakup shoot: She’d booked a session with Boyd before her relationship with her live-in boyfriend crumbled.
“But I followed through with my plans for the shoot and made it about me,” says the Brooklynite, who owns her own hair and makeup studio, Saint Rose. The 31-year-old booked a trip to Paris, where she slid into sexy lingerie and a sultry red dress — right in front of the Eiffel Tower (at the crack of dawn, to avoid the crowds). “If you’re going to do it, do it all the way!” she says. Sans flights, the shoot cost $1,900 — totally worth it, in Acosta’s eyes.
For Lori Lengua, 43, a screw-you shoot was a way to publicly reclaim her identity after marriage.
“The past six years I had lost myself to my ex, but when I took those pictures, it was like I had finally gotten back Lori,” says the New Jersey publicist, whose divorce was finalized in February. She marked the occasion with a $125 photo shoot in Staten Island last week, complete with a hat that read “Dogs make me happy — you, not so much.”
“I was hoping [my ex] would see it on my Instagram,” says Lengua of the sartorial snipe.
That “Show him what he’s missing” mentality drove Lori Monte-Hubbard to Harlem photographer Ricardo Andre after her divorce four years ago.
“In my mind, I was like, ‘You see me now? I’m a 55-year-old woman and I’m hot as s–t,’ ” says the East Norwalk, Conn., life coach of that session with Andre, who charges upward of $600 for some of his shoots.
She was so in love with the photos, she used them on her dating profile — and showed them to her kids, now 22 and 24. “I said, ‘Look at your mom! She’s a sexy, confident woman!’ ” She’s returned to Andre every year since, ramping up the glamour each time: For the last shoot, she donned a red blouse and leather skirt, got her hair and makeup done and even dieted ahead of time.
Andre says clients coping with breakups and divorces make up about 60% of his business — and that they’re not all women, either. But the dudes, he says, tend to be less upfront about their motivations.
“A lot of them come in for corporate headshots, but then once you start shooting, you get the real story,” says Andre, who estimates he’s done about a dozen “unofficial” post-divorce shoots for men.
Whoever the subject, the end result is the same: a smug sense of satisfaction and a lasting confidence boost.
“The session made me realize I didn’t need someone to feel good about myself,” says Acosta of her French adventure. “I don’t need a man’s approval or desire to feel sexy.”