Playmates
Britany
Nola

Think outside the box with Britany Nola, our Miss November 2012. She’s a beauteous blonde with soft shaded eyes and pouted lips, a well-formed bust and rounded hips – not unlike another of our Playmates, a certain Miss Monroe. A Canadian from Toronto, Ontario, Britany is mixed race – born to a black father and white mother – and in equation, she’s more than the sum of any of her parts. “I feel lucky to have been raised with two distinct perspectives,” she says. “It wasn’t without its difficulties – other peoples’ judgement, for one thing. People treated me differently because I was mixed. But both of my parents are therapists, and I was raised to have good head on my shoulders.”

Britany is an international model – she’s been everywhere and done everything, from high fashion in New York to high art in Europe. She loves working with a creative team, but she finds that her own creativity is stunted without an outlet. She writes short stories and poems – “I’m no good,” she says, unconvincing – and she’s trying her hand as a film actress. She plays the lead in the up-and-coming American Ecstasy, an independent film directed by photographer Jonathan Leder – but for a dreamer, Britany has no illusion of herself. “I’m not interested in fame or fortune,” she insists. “I won’t take any role that’s offered to me. I want to be respected for my work.”

If not for her work, you can respect Britany for her tastes, which are not so refined as they are fine-tuned. She’s an advocate for LGBT righ s, she prefers red wine to white, and she collects vintage clothing and jewelry. She’s a cinephile – her favorite film is Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire – and her favorite novel is Nabokov’s famed play on dirty words, Lolita. “I don’t watch a lot of television, but I never miss an episode of Mad Men,” she admits, and her retro-themed pictorial could very well be set in Don and Megan’s mid-century digs. As for her taste in music, it’s eclectic – from current favorites like Chairlift, The Black Keys and The XX to old favorites like David Bowie and Talking Heads. “I listen to a lot of music, but my favorite song of all time has to be "Where Is My Mind,” she says. “You know, by The Pixies.”

So how did Britany get from the pages of a blog to the pages of Playboy? “Hef happened to see the trailer for American Ecstasy, and I guess he liked what he saw,” she says. “I’m thrilled to be a Playmate. There’s nothing vulgar about nudity – not the way Playboy does it. It’s just as much for women as it is for men – it’s a venue for self-expression, a place you can be proud of your body.” For now, Britany is taking her sudden fame – and sudden inundation of work – as it comes. She divides her time between Manhattan, where she shares a charming pre-war apartment with a couple of roommates and a dog, and Los Angeles, where she’s already a member of the Playboy in-crowd. Both are centers of art and literature, but more importantly, centers of the modeling industry – her star is on the rise, and it’s a no-brainer for a brain like Britany.