21st Century Foxes
By Tod Hunter
Monday, August 4, 2008
Venerable men's magazine Playboy is coming up on its 55th anniversary this January, and as they have been doing every five years since 1974, they are searching for an Anniversary Playmate.
For the first time, however, they conducted part of the search online. The talent search invited would-be Playmates to post a two-minute non-nude video on Playboy's YouTube channel. The videos were reviewed by Playboy and posted on Playboy.com for evaluation by users before the final selections were made by Playboy Playmate editor Holly Madison and Playboy editorial personnel.
The six models selected were Autumn Adele, 25, from Amelia Island, Fla.; Jaime Bradford, 18, from Phoenix, Ariz.; Amy Lynn Grover, 24, from Toronto, Ontario; LaToya Howard, 21, from Tulsa, Okla.; Mary Piemonte, 21, from Chicago; and Ashton Verrengia, 20, from Austin, Texas.
All six YouTube search winners were brought to Los Angeles where each posed for a Playmate test shoot, a fashion pictorial showcasing Playboy's autumn/winter apparel collection, and a nude pictorial for the Playboy Cyber Club subscription website. The first of the nude pictorials is online now, featuring Verrengia, who is pictured above.
The Playboy 55th-anniversary Playmate will be announced later this year.
