The Transformative Lens of Animal In A Dress

Art is often described as a mirror, but for some artists, it functions as something more powerful. For Indianapolis-based photographer Jordan Connor Christie, the force of art lives in the act of embodiment. Through her work as Animal in a Dress, Jordan uses boudoir photography to help people step fully into themselves, reclaim their stories, and see their own beauty reflected in lasting images.

Jordan did not set out to be a boudoir photographer. Her journey began with self-portraiture, born from a need to process personal experience. “I very much started out making self-portrait art, and it was maybe evocative in nature, but it wasn’t forced or posed. It was celebrating the female form,” she says. What began as an act of survival and self-understanding evolved into an artistic practice rooted in empowerment.

The name Animal in a Dress came during her time in art school, when a professor offered an unexpected compliment during a critique. “He told me, ‘You’re an animal in a dress,’” Jordan recalls. “Natural is normal. I get to determine what is normal and natural for me, what is beautiful to me.” That phrase became more than a name. It became a guiding philosophy: embracing the primal, authentic parts of ourselves while celebrating the beauty of embodiment.

Boudoir, as Jordan envisions it, is not about performance or voyeurism. It is about transformation. She describes her sessions as deeply intentional, drawing on her yoga teacher training to guide clients into confidence.

“I can teach you how to breathe more embodied. I can help you move in ways that are strong and feel good. And then you take a picture of the full transformation. That’s empowerment.” For her, empowerment is not just about the final image but about the process itself, learning to breathe fully, take up space, and exist unapologetically.

She calls it “doing a confidance.” The word, spelled incorrectly on purpose, reflects her philosophy of rewriting the narratives that have been imposed on women. “Empowerment, when it’s captured in an image, is doing a confidance, spelling words wrong on purpose because you can, rewriting history, reclaiming your language,” she says. “We are these primal, outrageous animals, and we get to dress up and be pretty and have fun with it, and that is glorious and immaculate.”

Her clients often arrive with hesitation. Many have internalized the message that beauty is only to be celebrated on milestones such as weddings or anniversaries, or through polished portraits that fit neatly on a holiday card. Jordan pushes back against that notion. “It’s okay to imagine yourself not just on your wedding day, but on any Tuesday, because you want to feel good and have that reminder blown up on the wall.”

The results can be life-changing. Jordan recalls the impact of photographing breast cancer survivors. “When they see themselves beautiful again after chemo or surgery, there’s so much more light in their eyes. It’s about their face, their expression, their full embrace. It’s coming back to yourself.” These sessions are not about surface beauty but about rediscovery, the moment someone recognizes resilience and radiance in their own reflection.

Her work is not without resistance. From the beginning, Jordan was misunderstood. “In art school, I was labeled a pornographer,” she says. What her peers and professors dismissed as objectification was, in fact, an attempt to heal. “I was trying to heal a sexual trauma. I chose to photograph myself because my body had been objectified, and I needed to rewrite that story for myself.”

The backlash did not end in school. Jordan has faced criticism from family and others who could not understand her work. Still, she persisted. “Every time I would do it, every time I would post about it, I felt more and more vindicated, because I know who I am, I know what I’m supposed to do.”

For Jordan, the meaning of boudoir goes deeper than sensuality or glamour. It is about creating a private space where clients can rewrite their own stories. She recalls moving into a new home during the pandemic and finding a room with yellow wallpaper, echoing the famous short story about a woman trapped in her domestic environment. For Jordan, that room became a personal boudoir, a space for embodiment, discovery, and artistic evolution.

“Boudoir is a woman’s private layer, her space to play and discover and hold space for herself. It can be a real place or an internal gesture.”

This idea of discovery is central to her philosophy. Art, for Jordan, is not only the reclamation of what has been lost or taken but also the discovery of what has been there all along. “Art, for me, isn’t about reclamation as much as it is discovery. If you’re truly making art and wanting to explore your personal identity, it’s an evolution. It’s true embodiment.”

Jordan’s work challenges the idea that art is only valuable at its most visible or widely celebrated. She has built a practice that insists on intimacy, intentionality, and transformation. Her mission is not to produce photographs for others to consume, but to help people see themselves in ways they never thought possible.

“You basically decide: which statistic are you going to be? Are you going to give up, or are you going to scrape by and keep making?” she asks. For Jordan, the choice was clear. “I am sleeping, dreaming, eating, thinking about my business. I’ve taken it upon myself to be a business, because that’s how I can help other people with it.”

Jordan calls herself a people photographer. It is a distinction she makes intentionally.

“I would never tell people I was a photographer. I always said I’m an artist. Now I say I’m a people photographer. You have to know what that is to vibe with me. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.”

At the heart of Animal in a Dress is the belief that empowerment comes from owning our stories, our bodies, and our beauty. For Jordan, art is not only a way of seeing but a way of becoming. “We are these primal, outrageous animals,” she says, “and we get to dress up and be pretty and have fun with it. That is glorious.”

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Written by Emily Mellentine

Images Courtesy of Jordan Connor Christie, Animal in A Dress