Staff Feature Saturday: Behold! Jezebel’s Boudoir Boss!

July is a beloved month at Jezebel VonZephyr. Why? Because it’s JVZ’s birthday month! We’re celebrating all month long with a special blog series that highlights the Jezebel team. Each Saturday in July we’ll spotlight one of the JVZ team members so that you, our lovely readers and clients, can learn more about us! 

Today we feature the woman! The myth! The legend! Jezebel’s creator herself: Sara!!! If you aren’t familiar with her, Sara is the creative force who dreamed up and gave birth to Jezebel VonZephyr, the studio and the community that she is today. The company would not exist without Sara, so today (and all of July!) we celebrate her spark, drive, determination and vision. Let’s learn more about Jezebel’s creator, photographer and badass businesswoman!

Who are you? My name is Sara James Williams and I have been in love with photography since I was about 10 years old. I enjoy capturing all kinds of things in my camera from pets to nature to landscapes to kiddos, but my absolute favorite thing to witness is a woman owning her body. Nothing lights my soul on fire more than watching another woman walk into her power, hug her body tightly and claim it as her own. Once she’s done that, she can do anything. I’ve seen women with PhDs who can’t love their fat or their wrinkles but forget the meals with family and the laughter with friends that brought them those things. I was raised by a strong feminist woman and it’s no surprise I became one myself. 

I digress….I do have a college degree, although nothing super fancy, an AAS from Bellevue College with an emphasis in psychology and photography. I am a lover of pop culture; my favorite TV show is Supernatural (#SPNFamilyForever). I enjoy camping, traveling, sporadic adventures, and I’m often fashionably late (and sometimes not so fashionably). I laugh loudly, I swear a fuck ton, I live by a simple motto of “I do what I want, mostly with love” and I help others do the same. I LOOOOOVE MUSIC—all kinds. Everything from Godsmack and Nirvana to Bon Jovi and Garth Brooks, to Kesha and Frank Sinatra (not just the Christmas albums!), to Queen and epic amounts of Classic Rock. I got a record player for my birthday last fall and have been collecting all the records I can.  I live in Snohomish, WA with my husband of 10 years (20 years together), our Bernese Mountain Dog, Crowley, and a hundred or two gnomes.

How long have you been a part of the Jezebel team? And what do you do? I started the Jezebel team! 🤣 I am the owner and founder and photographer. It’s been almost 8 years. It will be on July 25th. That was the date I registered the domain, officially walked out of corporate America and started living by my own heartbeat. I have always loved the name Jezebel. I like the saucy and snarky implications of the name – the sexual freedom and expression of self. The way it just sizzles on your tongue as you say it. It’s a bit naughty and a lot powerful. It says something. I knew immediately after I decided to open a boudoir studio that I wanted “Jezebel” in the name. Von Zepher came later through a Google name generator and many hours of hitting “next name” and making a list of those parts of names we liked and ditching what we didn’t. In the end we were left with Jezebel VonZephyr and I love that “she” feels separate from me, from all of us, like she’s her own person—the beauty and the brawn. 

Where are you from? I was born on Thanksgiving day 1977 in San Mateo, California. My mom’s OBGYN was busy playing golf that day and I came out anyway—no drugs, just feminine energy and a lot of swearing. My family moved us to Washington when I was 2ish and I was mostly raised in the Bothell/Woodinville part of western Washington. My parents divorced when I was 12 and for a bit there I went to many schools and lived everywhere till the dust settled. I graduated from Bothell High School in 1996 –  GO COUGS!

What is your theme song? Oh this varies. Remember how much I love music?!? Here’s a short list of my theme songs over the years. 

• It’s My Life by Bon Jovi
• Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen
• Woman by Kesha
• Roar by Katy Perry
• Night Moves by Bob Segar
• Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas Band
• I am the Fire by Halestorm
• Better Than That by Briana Buckmaster
• Not a Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco
• Standing Outside the Fire by Garth Brooks
• Bitch by Meredith Brooks
• Whatever and Voodoo by Godsmack
• Fight Song by Rachel Platten 
• All I Really Want by Alanis Morissette

The point is I could go on and on and on here. I love music. I love the way it moves through my body, the way it pulls emotion through you, the “extra” it adds to anything—to a laugh, to a look, to the butterflies in your belly. Lyrics and sound moving together in poetic perfection—it lights me up! My current theme song is “America’s Sweetheart” by Elle King.

When you’re not doing Jezebel things, what do you do?  I spend a load of time with my husband and my chosen family. I love going to the movies, I prefer anything that isn’t horror or will not let me sleep at night. As a psych major, my imagination goes a little too far after I get home and/or want to go to bed…and often it’s not sleeping for a week, so I skip the scary. I feel this way about roller coasters too…twists and turns are great, giant jumps and drops and scares – PASS! I also enjoy time with my dog; we take him on all kinds of adventures: hiking, exploring the beach and the mountains –  the Pacific Northwest is such a gem of a landscape. Everything is lush and beautiful and being outside in it makes me happy. I’m not athletic – “Fat Bottomed Girls” was on that music list for a reason—but I love the outdoors. As I’m writing this I’m sitting on the shores of the Skykomish river camping on day 5 in the sun, surrounded by dogs and the smell of summer. It’s amazing! 

What are three words you’d use to describe yourself?  Empathetic. Bold. Wild. 

What three words do you think the JVZ team would use to describe you? Oh god. I have no idea. Are we going to ask?!? 🤣🤣🤣 They’d probably say I was a little nuts, loud, and caring. I think they know the depths of my heart most of the time and know I’d do anything for them. 

Do you have a favorite drink? Sometimes…alcoholic drink? Eh…rum and Coke or Jack and coke, maybe a pint of Mcmenamins Ruby. Non alcoholic: coffee or water. Kinda boring. 🤷🏼‍♀️

What’s your favorite season? Why? SUMMER FOREVER!!! And really I should specify: PNW SUMMER FOREVER! Nothing is better than Washington in July and August. Nothing. It’s mid 80’s (typically), a little breezy, warm but not too warm, the sun rises early (like 4 am) and doesn’t set until 10pm sometimes. The long days and the warm weather are just magic to me. If we’re really lucky (yes, I said lucky), we’ll get an epic rainstorm and the rain will be just a touch cooler than the air, and the smell…oh.my.god. The smell of the fresh rain on the hot earth. I AM HERE FOR IT. Sunsets are long and pink and purple and golden—like a painting. As a photographer I create imagery working with light. No one puts on a better show than Mother Nature. 

What is your favorite swear word? Tough call. “Fuck” is my go to. It says everything you need it to and can be any part of the sentence. Go ahead make it the verb and the noun—it’s good like that! However I’ve been really enjoying the way “cunt” just bites the air a little. 

A swear word that isn’t: Fat. And this is one of my new favorites to roll out in a positive way. In a descriptive way. In a proud way. I’m an “in between-er”, not quite fat enough to be a “fat girl” but not thin enough by a mile to be a “thin girl”. I’m a chunky chick in the middle. I love it, I own it and I show it off all the time. 

Would you like to share a random fact about yourself? I’ll give a few! 

• I can touch my tongue to my nose. 
• I love to sing and dance and suck at both but I don’t care and do it anyway. Life is for fun, not for perfection. 
• I’ve climbed almost to the top of Mt Rainier (14,411 ft) to Camp Sherman at 10k ft. 

What book (or movie or TV show) do you recommend to all your friends? Book? My all time favorite book is The Time Traveler’s Wife. It’s a love story to end all love stories. And there’s some great sex in it. The movie is fucking garbage compared to the book. I almost walked out. I just finished Daisy Jones & The Six, though, and I just want to read it again. It’s a fictional rockumentary. I want to HEAR this band. 

Do you have a favorite JVZ shoot look or outfit? Or outfits?  I always enjoy the things we create for team sessions. We tend to go a little extra because IF we screw it up and it’s awful it’s just us and we can always do it over. I loved my GISH set from last year…my stuffies, my sequin top and the sequin “funderwear” I had to make for the task. GISH is the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt and we’ve been doing this now every summer with 100,000 other weirdos in over 100 other countries. My set also has my sock monkey hat and I love it! 

OMG and my gnome set! It’s just campy and cute and fun and I love it! 

The dark and moody we created for Kirwin’s Red Riding Hood set last year was also really amazing. I love that we keep getting better and more creative and finding different ways to bring women to life. 

What advice do you have for anyone coming in for their first shoot? 

It will change your life if you let it. 

I can’t stress this enough. It’s the absolute truth and it’s not just me giving lip service because I want people to come in. I want an army of women so strong, so powerful, so educated, that no diet culture, no rape culture, no “blow me for a job” culture, no domestic violence culture, no oppressive fuckery will ever stop them. I want women to see that garbage and say “no thank you, next” until it’s washed from the earth. More than that: I want a generation of women that never have to fight any of this garbage because the women before them eradicated it from their lives. Struggle helps us all overcome, but oppression is bad for all humanity. 

Can you share one of your favorite JVZ memories?  Our 5th birthday party was crazy. It was this party that changed every other from a “gala” to a “birthday party”. Everyone wore cake. It was inevitable. As the cake was cut, I saw the twinkle of squish in Kaitlyn’s eye and as she attacked Krissy, Tiffany came in and got me. We danced, we sang, we drank, we gave a speech I think. 🤣

Having an official booth at Emerald City Comicon in 2018 was iconic. Launching Project Fan Girl into her own light—watching fandom merge with the sensuality and playfulness of boudoir was incredible. Seeing other people love the iconic characters you do – this is how a chosen fandom family is made. 

Team Reveal Day is my new favorite day. After all of our team sessions last year, I edited everyone’s photos and we all got together to watch slideshows and oooh and ahh at each other. All 5 of us, a charcuterie board, some drinks and a snuggle pile and we just got to be together. After the past year of COVID being with my besties in person was the most decadent treat. With every change of the slide we got to see a new side of one of us. We get to see each other grow and we get to see ourselves grow. At the core of everything we are a family. A chosen family, but a family. 

What are your biggest hopes and dreams for Jezebel VonZephyr? I like Madonna‘s answer to this question “I want her to rule the world.” And really—it doesn’t need to be Jezebel that does that, but the heart of her, the belief that all women are worthy of being comfortable in (if not fully loving) their bodies. 

Anything else you want to share with everyone?

The only thing in life you’ll ever regret are the risks you don’t take. Take them now. Take them as much as you can.

I like to take calculated risks vs willy nilly risks. But I take them. I push myself because growth lives at the edge of my comfort zone. Everytime I get to the edge and think “I can’t do it” I hear a small voice inside me say “yes I fucking can.” 

Sara and the entire Jezebel VonZephyr team works hard to help women see themselves in a new light. We are proud of the community we’ve created (and continue to grow) as well as the life-changing experience that we get to give to women. Jezebel VonZephyr believes that boudoir is for every woman, regardless of her age, race, size, or budget. We invite you to treat yourself to a session and see what Sara has worked so hard to create. Like she said: a session could change your life if you let it. What are you waiting for? Your new life could begin with a click of her camera!