Mark Kleckner is very excited –and with good reason. This bright (a degree in engineering), handsome (yes, we’re talking super-model) young men is poised to see his latest venture, The Dream Team –a collection of five of the most heart-stopping examples of male pulchritude anywhere– become the hottest new trend in marketing since Bart Simpson. Currently in the works: a mini-series, a line of men’s clothing, calendars, in addition to appearances on talk shows and at charity events.
“A lot of the female supermodels were selling calendars and merchandising their images and I thought, Why am I doing this for other people when I could be doing it for myself? So, we put a group of guys together that we thought represented to the best the modeling world had to offer; held a big casting call – looked at over 1000 men.”
And just what did it take to make the cut? “Of course they had to be physically fit, appealing, good-looking –but guys like that are a dime a dozen,” Kleckner explains. “Every supermodel out there has that. These guys had to have something else going for them: They had to be very intelligent and have other interests in their lives. They had to be outgoing and well spoken, because we make a lot of personal appearances and need to be able to address a great many topics.”
So, what convinced this mega model to go the next step and appear for the pages of PLAYGIRL?
“It’s something that I had to wrestle with for a while,” Kleckner confesses. “The dream team image has always been squeaky-clean –but now our audience seems to want something a little more, I don’t know… risqué? So we thought we’d venture out.”
Did he have any problem with the nudity?
“I was a body model for a number of years; I was an underwear model. I posed for still photographers for art pieces. I grew up in Europe part of the time, so for me nudity was no big deal. It was everywhere –at the swimming pools, at the beaches. It’s just a very natural thing. Americans have a big stigma when it comes to duty. I don’t know why…
… See ALL of Mark on Playgirl+
