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Snowboards get a dose of Playboy

Dan D'Ambrosio
The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press
This publicity photo shows one of three Burton snowboard designs to feature Playboy bunnies.

BURLINGTON, Vt. — An iconic snowboard company has reunited with Playboy Enterprises to launch a collection featuring vintage centerfolds — and tattoo art to make them acceptable on slopes where families slide.

Burlington-based Burton Snowboards first collaborated with Playboy in 2008, stirring a storm of protest here. The company’s owners, Jake Burton and Donna Carpenter, were surprised and saddened but stood by the decision to market the boards.

Burton takes the same position today, saying his company supports freedom of artistic expression.

The new boards, also featuring the work of tattoo artist Chris Nunez, are available worldwide in stores and online though they were absent from Burton’s new retail store here when the shop opened Saturday. Burton’s flagship store has the boards available but not on display on the sales floor.

“The misty collaboration features Playboy Playmates and will bring the best in lightweight performance, freestyle playfulness and all-terrain prowess,” the news release said.

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Part of Burton’s Winter 2016 collection, the Playboy boards sell for $479.

Seven years ago when Burton put Bunnies on boards, the outrage brought a ban from five ski resorts — Smuggler’s Notch, Killington Resort, Pico Mountain, Stowe Mountain Resort and Sugarbush — on employees riding them, scads of letters to the editor, opinion pieces, a protest outside the company's flagship store and a Burlington City Council resolution seeking meetings with the privately held company.

Vail Resorts — which owns Vail, Beaver Creek Resort, Breckenridge Ski Resort and Keystone Ski Resort in Colorado along with California’s Heavenly Mountain Resort — also prohibited employees from using the “Love” boards, which featured four Playboy bunnies. Another line of boards, called “Primo,” detailed “self-mutilation in a comic book-style storyboard on the base,” according to a Burlington Free Press report from the time.

Burton dropped the Love collection in 2011, saying the last edition of the boards would be sold only through Burton’s Private Stock program, which is limited to a few specialty retailers worldwide.

So, one might ask: What is Burton thinking in bringing the boards back for 2016?

“Since Burton was founded nearly 40 years ago, we’ve supported freedom of artistic expression," Jake Burton wrote in email. "Board graphics are artwork, and we understand that art can be offensive to some and inspiring to others. I strongly back our latest snowboard collection with Playboy and was involved in the project from the beginning.

“We understand that opinions may differ on this topic, but here is mine,” he wrote. “Playboy is one of the most iconic brands in the world, and we’re proud to have worked with them on a number of projects for over a decade."

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He expects the boards to become collectors' items.

The executive director of a youth and family services agency that participated in a program to teach snowboarding to at-risk youth here was disappointed in Burton's decision to renew the Playboy partnership because he thought the boards, like the original centerfolds, objectify women. Mark Redmond of Spectrum Youth & Family Services withdrew from the program in 2008 but decided to try to rejoin this season.

The bunny boards were introduced about a month after Playboy announced to great fanfare that the company no longer would feature photos of fully nude models in the magazine. The company, which for a great many years has marketed its logo and photos outside the magazine, went private in 2011, 40 years after becoming a publicly traded company.

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The snowboards feature scantily clad women with Nunez’s art covering their bodies in strategic locations.

“Playboy has a rich, unparalleled 62-year-old brand history founded on personal freedom and liberty,” Playboy spokesman John Vlautin said. “Nudity has always been just a component of the Playboy brand, not the centerpiece of it. As the world now knows, we’re re-articulating Playboy with a new sensibility that honors our original brand vision."

Win Smith, owner of Sugarbush, said he has no issues with the 2016 Playboy boards. But he didn’t think the 2008 collection was “appropriate.”

“Obviously there’s freedom of speech, and we’re not in the business of censorship, but we wouldn’t rent or sell the boards,” Smith said. “People would be free to ride the slopes (with the Playboy boards), but if somebody put a board on display outside the family center, we would respectfully move it to another area.”

Follow Dan D'Ambrosio on Twitter: @DanDambrosioVT

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