In fact, the very first girl to appear full-frontal as a Playboy centrefold was an English girl, Marilyn Cole. You can see Marilyn Cole (with her clothes on) in the Yvonne Paul YouTube video on our main page (screen capture at right).
Most British models have heard of Playboy, and have a vague idea that Jordan and Danielle Lloyd have been in it, though most girls have not actually seen the photos (there are copyright issues about anyone reproducing them), and most girls have not seen Playboy Cyber Club, where most Playboy material resides.
Here is our simple guide to Playboy (including some notes about how British models sometimes appear in it):
There are several types of modelling assignment for Playboy. The most prestigious assignment is to be a Playmate.
The Playmate of the Month features in the printed magazine. The magazine has a double-page pull-out spread in the centre of the magazine which is the "Centrefold". British girls (but not Jordan nor Danielle) have occasionally been featured as Playmates of the Month.
In fact, the very first girl to appear full-frontal as a Playboy centrefold was an English girl, Marilyn Cole. You can see Marilyn Cole (with her clothes on) in the Yvonne Paul YouTube video on our main page (screen capture at right).
The Playmate of the Month also makes a short video, showing her doing various other activities - dancing or sports or acting or talking about herself, etc. Each year the videos of the 12 monthly Playmates are compiled into a single DVD, called the Playboy Video Calendar, which goes on sale around Christmas time.
Each monthly printed issue of Playboy also normally contains 2 additional pictorials. Jordan and Danielle Lloyd were never Playmates. When they appeared in Playboy they featured in one of these additional pictorials.
The Cyber Club has a Cyber Girl of the Week, and of the Month, and the Year, and there is a College Student of the Week, and of the Month. There is a regular Casting Call feature - where they take girls off the street. Many of the Casting Call girls look a bit rough.
There's also a monthly UK Cyber Girl. The UK Cyber Girl series began featuring former Page 3 girls Kerri G, and Lauren Pope. But getting Page 3 girls seems to have been unsustainable. Most of the UK Cyber Girls used now are girls we've never heard of.
Playboy also publishes a series of printed magazines, full of photos, called Special Editions. These photos also feature on the Cyber Club website. Every day, 2 fresh Special Editions photos are posted on Cyber Club. English models have often been used for these photos. During the 1990's it was quite common for Page 3 girls to do pictures for Special Edtions. Jordan appeared in Special Editions, both in the books and on the website, many times (this was while she was on Page 3, before she had her implants, there are about 30 photos of Jordan currently on Playboy Cyber Club). So did Anna Taverner, Jodie Shaw, and many others. Today the Special Editions models are less distinguished and less well known, typically girls like Cassie Sumner and Louise Glover. Some of these girls have been the subject of lurid stories in the tabloid press.
During the past 10 years the reputation of the magazine has declined. There are several reasons for this decline: firstly the demands of the Cyber Club production-line has resulted in a loss of originality and freshness in the photoshoots. The quality of the girls has also deteriorated. The most important single factor here has been the trend of using girls with fake boobs. At the same time that fake boobs became adopted for many Playboy models, a trend also began for shaving/waxing of Playboy models. Waxing began quite discretely, but today, total waxing seems to have become compulsory for Playboy models. Fake boobs and waxing tend to give most Playboy's models a barbie/porno look, that is responsible for the tacky reputation the Playboy brand has today.
Today, the Gold Standard for glamour models (if not the photography) has become Page 3. The Sun's Page 3 Girls are a cut above Playboy models. There were press reports of Playboy offering Keeley Hazell a six-figure sum for a PhotoShoot, though her management declined.
A few years ago Playboy offered Sun Page 3 girl Katie Richmond £250,000, which was considered a fortune at the time. Katie Richmond went to LA and was given the red carpet treatment, but eventually decided that Playboy was not for her and turned down the opportunity, despite the large amount of cash on offer (see newspaper article, at right).
Playboy is an example of "chav" culture: the idea that throwing money at something or someone can buy quality and taste.
The quality of a website, and its models, can be measured from the proportion of its images that readers choose to download and save. A long time ago we used to save lots of images from Playboy. But not any more. Despite dozens of new photosets being posted on Cyber Club every week, we rarely find ourselves saving Playboy images these days. Most Cyber Club photosets seem to show uninspiring bored-looking girls, in poses that we've seen a thousand times before.
We review the Body-in-Mind photosets, not all of them, just the better ones. But the ones we do feature all contain plenty of images that are worth seeing. At the time of writing there are 4 photoshoots from Body-in-Mind reviewed on our main page. They are all by the same photographer, named Chris Ruegge. His models are all attractive and seem to have natural figures (much like Playboy models of the 1980's). His sets are all stylish and creative; they all tend to be different to things we've seen before. The poses in the photosets are graphic and stylish, and in some case, quite innovative. Some people may say his girls all look similar - they do; but they are at the opposite pole to Playboy's barbie/porno look. Interestingly The Sun's girls tend, at the moment, to be brunettes.
Simply-Gorgeous PhotoShoots Main Page
