The Evolution of Playboy, From First Centerfold to Last Nude Issue
The magazine will be re-launched this weekend.
— -- Playboy is the most famous nudie magazine on Earth, hidden in Grandpa’s closet, in cousin Billy’s high school locker, on newsstands around the globe.
Playboy CEO Scott Flanders said Playboy’s rabbit head logo is “among the three most recognized logos in the world,” along with Nike’s swoosh and Apple’s apple logo.
But Playboy, with this weekend’s revolutionary re-launch, will be a nudie magazine no more.
“The buck stops in my office if it fails,” Flanders said.
The 62-year-old magazine is still owned by the now 89-year-old Hugh Hefner, and editorial director Jason Buhrmester said Hef’s on board with the new plan.
So why the decision to lose the nudes? Flanders said, “We re-launched our website in August of 2014 as a safe-for-work, entirely non-nude experience and it exploded.”
“Traffic sky-rocketed,” added Playboy’s chief content officer Cory Jones.
Pamela Anderson was the magazine’s cover girl for its last nude issue – her 15th and she says probably last cover.
“Hef used to say I made this magazine for a girl like you,” she said.
When asked if she would ever pose for Playboy with her clothes on, Anderson laughed and said, “What’s the point?”
While Playboy is getting out of the nudie game, the new, clean magazine said it will still do photo spreads. The models just won’t be shown nude.
Dani Mathers was the last ever nude Playboy Playmate of the Year. “The girls are going to actually be nude shooting. It’s just going to be implied. So you won’t actually see nipples or anything down below,” she said.
Sarah McDaniel, an Instagram star, said it was a huge honor to pose for a Playboy cover.
“Playboy to me means freedom for women, like, feminism and kind of just expressing yourself and no holding back,” she said. “My dad was actually the first one to be like, ‘You better ******* do Playboy’ because he really wanted me to be in it…because it’s historical.”
The magazine said there’s a philosophy behind the idea of not showing nudity.
“Being a brand that challenges the norms has always been a part of Playboy,” said photo director Rebecca Black. “And being that nudity doesn’t really challenge the norms anymore.” She added that the magazine wanted to move in a direction that’s more in-line with “the Instagram crowd.”
The idea is that Playboy is something readers can read on the train or leave on their coffee tables without blushing – and the articles will still be there, of course.
“I would say that probably one of the hardest parts of the whole process is finding out where the line was and then walking up to it,” Cory Jones added. “We still have to be who we are. We still have to be Playboy, we have to have that edge. We have to that sexiness.”
Pamela Anderson said she still finds the magazine’s decision to go nude-free a bit “shocking,” but agrees it could help the brand in the long run.
“It was probably smart of them to do,” she said. “I don’t see how they could have continued it this way. It was either done, or it’s gotta change.”
ABC News' Nick Watt contributed to this story
