Stacy Collins and Breann McGregor, "Playboy Special Editions" editor and model: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1
Guys, Stacy Collins has your dream job.

As a managing editor of Playboy special editions, she spends day after day looking at the world’s most beautiful, mostly naked women. Some are in photographs, but many meet her discriminating eye in the flesh.

And now that I say that out loud, it’s not hard to understand why she’s in the job and you’re not.

Breann McGregor is one of the beauties Stacy works with. They actually spent a lot of time together this past year and will probably be just as inseparable in the coming year considering that Breann was named “Playboy Special Editions Model of the Year” and “Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the Year.” She is featured on her own website www.breannmcgregor.net. I’ll say it again cause I know you guys are pre-occupied – www.breannmcgregor.net.





BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Stacy, let’s start with you right now. What exactly are Playboy Special Editions, and how are they different from the monthly Playboy magazine?

STACY COLLINS: Sure. This question comes up quite a bit. And what happened was back in the eighties when Playboy magazine spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on pictorials and photographs, and they only used a select number in Playboy magazine, an archive of material became available. And the powers that be in Playboy said well, we should really be doing something with these amazing images, and viola, the idea of Playboy Special Editions, actually they were called newsstand specials or newsstand flats back in the day, and it was literally just a place to showcase all these beautiful photographs. Not a lot of editorial content, really just a lot of pretty pictures. That’s how it started back in like ’84. Now we actually have 25 issues a year. We do 2 issues every month. They’re thematic in nature so there’s Lingerie, College Girls, and Vixens. We do themed playmate titles. And now, instead of just re-using content that was available from the Playboy library, we actually commission our own images, and we have our own models. And we’ve sort of built our own little business here and have become a content provider for not only our special editions but for Playboy magazine, for playboy.com, for our cyber club, and we’ve got our own little business unit happening here. And we’ve become sort of a brand within or underneath the Playboy umbrella.

ANDELMAN: So I want to make sure I understand cause I’m a little slow. Special editions are for the guys who hadn’t been reading the articles anyway.

COLLINS: That’s correct. That is correct. There’s not a lot of copy to get in the way, no fussy ads and articles to compete with the beautiful women. So, again, it’s really just a way to showcase the beautiful young ladies that we find all around the country. There is a little bit of information about the girls inside of each of the issues, but it’s really meant to showcase the beauty and glamour of our girls.





ANDELMAN: Now don’t tell my wife, but I have a copy of Playboy’s Lingerie in front of me which, of course, has Breann on the cover. And I think after you get past the necessary information, well, there is about four paragraphs of information about Breann right up front, but then I don’t think there’s another word other than the name of the model until maybe the inside back page.

COLLINS: Right, and that is on purpose. And that particular issue is a little bit unique in that we do showcase the “Model of the Year,” which was clearly Breann. But for the most part, some of the other issues we do don’t have any copy whatsoever. And we’ve heard a little bit from our consumers. They do love the photographs, but they’d like to know a little nugget, a little tidbit about the young lady. They like to know is she 5’4”? Is she 5’10”? Is she curvaceous? What’s her cup size? So we’re trying to incorporate a little bit of information in there without detracting from the photographs.

ANDELMAN: Guys want to know the model’s cup size? I’m shocked at that.

COLLINS: Yes, they do.

ANDELMAN: And, Breann, I just can’t imagine, in conversation, that that comes up very often.

McGREGOR: I’m sorry?

ANDELMAN: I can’t imagine that when you’re in conversation with someone that someone is going to ask you what your cup size is.

McGREGOR: No, it doesn’t happen often.

ANDELMAN: One more thing, Stacy, before we actually bring Breann more into this, but what have been some of the bigger sellers over the years for special editions?

COLLINS: Well, there are a couple things here. We actually publish Lingerie six times a year so that is the only special edition that is available by subscription, and we make it available in print subscription and also via Zinio, which is a downloadable version of the magazine which is becoming incredibly popular. So Lingerie is sort of our staple. It’s sort of our cornerstone of our publishing program. We will continue to publish 6 issues for the foreseeable future. And then we sort of mix and match other titles. Guys have their favorites. Vixens sort of focuses on girls who have a little more…

ANDELMAN: Cup size?

COLLINS: …ample assets, if you will. Curvaceous, bodacious, that type of thing. We have an issue entitled Natural Beauties where only girls who are completely natural, have no enhancements, are featured in that type of a magazine. And then we have College Girls which is, College Girls and Lingerie, are really pretty much our 2 major titles. And I think College Girls just because of the young, fresh coeds and sometimes there are girls from the conferences that Playboy does their searches so it might be the SEC or the Big Ten or the Pac 10 or Big 12, whatever those conferences are. And then we take that film and take it a little bit further because, again, the magazine can only use so much of the images. But, again, Lingerie, College Girls, Vixens, and then a lot of our Playmate titles are pretty popular. They’re all popular, Bob.

ANDELMAN: Well, as a Gator, I can’t imagine that once you’ve seen an SEC girl that you ever go back to any other conferences, but I guess you do.

COLLINS: Yeah. I’m a Big Ten girl, Bob. Be careful.





ANDELMAN: Breann, I did not forget about you. Did I read where you had wanted to pose since you were a little girl?

McGREGOR: Yeah, I have since I was 5.

ANDELMAN: Why, pray tell?

McGREGOR: Well, my dad would…I’d go get the mail, and I just remember asking my dad, “Why was this magazine in plastic?” And he’s like, “Oh, honey, don’t touch that. That’s for daddy.” Well, when you tell a kid “No,” it brings the curiosity out in them. The next month I just remember getting the mail and that one happened to be there so I snuck into the closet and opened it and was just like stunned by all the beautiful women. I was just like, “I want to be one of them.” I was like, “Wow, they’re gorgeous.” I’ve always wanted to do it.

ANDELMAN: This is why when, as my daughter was getting a little older, my wife made me start hiding the Playboys. So when my daughter said to me at one point, she said, dad, I want to be a baseball player, I said well, why is that? She said cause you’ll come and see me play. But it never occurred to me that she would see a Playboy and think I want to be one of those girls. But that’s okay. What was the first modeling that you ever did? Was it for Playboy, or was it for something else?

McGREGOR: No, it was for Playboy.

ANDELMAN: Really? How did you get in the door to do this?

McGREGOR: I went onto playboy.com, and they have their address there. And I sent in four Polaroids and from there got a call back, and then we communicated back and forth. And I sent in some other photos and then they called me to come in in August for a photo shoot.

ANDELMAN: And what was it like to actually do the photo shoot because I imagine thinking about it for years is one thing, but to go in and I don’t know, maybe it’s my own hang-up, but to go in and take your clothes off for strangers, be in a studio setting, that’s a little different?

McGREGOR: I was so comfortable. They made me feel very comfortable. It was surreal. I brought my mom up there with me. She was kind of like, “How do you know this is real? Are you sure?” I’m like, “Yes, mom.” She was a little scared about it. She was like, “I’m not gonna believe until I see the issue.” But when I was there, I remember the first photographer I shot with. The first scene that we did he was like, “Could you show a little bit of your shoulder?” So I dropped my slip down a little bit. He was like, “Okay, show a little bit of your breasts,” and I just dropped the dress down. He’s like, “Okay, we’ll get started there.” I had a good time. It was great. It was a lot of fun.

ANDELMAN: So, Stacy, is that pretty much the way these things go, that someone is either very into doing it, or they get there and they just don’t do it at all?

COLLINS: For someone to go this far into the process of submitting pictures and communicating with us and then showing up on set and not going through with it, that is incredibly rare. Usually, this is a dream come true for a young lady, and we are very particular about the photographers that we work with. We do have seven sets of photographers and producers around the country and in the U.K. and Canada, and they’ve been with Playboy for a very long time, and they know the drill. They know how to make a model feel comfortable. They know how to make her feel beautiful, and it just really sort of happens naturally. I have been surprised sometimes by a girl who’s incredibly green. We’ve just plucked her out of Midwest USA, put her on a set, and she comes alive in front of the camera because the comfort level is there. And I think, again, the excitement level to be affiliated with a brand like Playboy that is world-renowned, that is respected, that they know that they’re going to be treated properly and that the pictures are going to be beautiful.

ANDELMAN: So what was it like, Breann, to see yourself in the magazine the first time?

McGREGOR: I remember the first issue that I was in, it was College Girls. There’s a main girl on the front cover and then on the back, they’ll put a picture from a couple of the pictorials like one of each girl or a couple of the girls on the back of it just to show kind of what’s on the inside. And I was right there in the middle, in the center, and it just drew your attention. It was just like, “Oh, my God, I don’t know!” The Playboy editors called me, and it shocked me, and I’d gotten all excited. Like I was getting into the car, and they called me with some news, and I literally just fell out of the car while they were backing up cause I wasn’t in the car yet. I was just like, “Oh, my God!” It’s like excitement. I can’t explain it. Like she said, it’s like a dream come true. It’s just like wow, this is really happening.

ANDELMAN: Who was the first person you showed the magazine to?

McGREGOR: I showed my mom, and I think everybody went out and got it that day. The next day I was signing forever. Everybody was like, “Oh, my God, I saw your issue!” I think actually my friend had called me ‘cause he saw it first, and he was like, “Oh, my God, you’re on the back, you’re inside!” I’m like, “Oh, my God!” So I went and got it.

ANDELMAN: Was there anyone that you hesitated to show it to?

McGREGOR: No. No. My grandma is 79, so she’s kind of old-fashioned. She supported me. She went to Barnes & Noble, and she’s like, “Do you have a Playboy?” And they looked at her all weird, and she’s like, “My granddaughter’s in it!” She supports me. Everybody’s really supportive. They know this is what I want, and it makes me happy, and they’re happy for me.

Click Here to Keep Reading!

© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Labels: Breann McGregor, Cyber Girl of the Year, Hugh Hefner, Jeff Cohen, naked beauties, nude, Playboy Lingerie, Playboy Special Editions, sexy, Stacy Collins, topless women, Vixens

  ¶ 1:29 PM