Media

Playboy to bring back nude pictorials

Playboy magazines at a bookstore in Bethesda, Maryland.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

After a year of keeping its magazine models clad, Playboy has decided au naturel is the way to go, after all.

The magazine announced on Monday nude women will grace its pages once again. The March/April issue cover boasts the appropriate headline, "Naked is normal."

Chief creative officer Cooper Hefner said on Twitter the way the magazine previously featured nude models was "dated," but he believed getting rid of all nudity was not the right choice.

"Nudity was never the problem because nudity isn't a problem," Hefner, who is the son of founder Hugh Hefner, posted on Twitter. "Today we're taking our identity back and reclaiming who we are."

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Playboy previously told CNBC it adopted the non-nude policy to get more mainstream readers and advertisers. In May 2015, the company launched a safe-for-work app. Less than a year later, the magazine did away with naked women. The first issue in the new format was March 2016, which hit 1,200 more newsstands and had a 55.5 percent increase in advertising compared to the issue from the year before.