At 24, successful and charming Kecia has already graced the covers of hundreds of magazines--including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, McCall's and Harper's Bazaar--and belongs to that elite circle of top fashion models that includes Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy, Donyale Luna, Veruschka and Penelope Tree. Modeling for Kecia means total involvement and she approaches it dynamically, performing before the camera with the same enthusiasm displayed by Veruschka in the writhing opening scenes of Blow-Up. She says of her thoughts during a shooting session: "I want to go to bed with the photographer. Only an erotically charged atmosphere brings out the best in me and, I immodestly believe, also in the photographer. Naturally, I don't let my feelings run away with me during the session. I'm merely using them as wings to fly in the right direction. It's my way of taking a trip--and it is a hell of a lot better and less harmful than LSD for stimulation." Now an outspoken member of the jet set, Kecia traces her beginnings to Halli, Finland, where she was born on a farm. The family emigrated to Canada when she was 12, and shortly afterward a German photographer, who happened to see her in a Vancouver department store, signed her to model for the store's catalog; from that assignment she rapidly became a favorite of such internationally known lensmen as Richard Avedon, Art Kane and Douglas Kirkland. Currently boasting luxurious New York and Paris apartments, a dazzling wardrobe and assignments stretching months ahead, forward-thinking Kecia recently expanded the scope of her career by appearing in a French film (Un Epais Manteau de Sang) and making her au naturel debut in print for Playboy. "At first," she says, "I thought I could not do it. But my professionalism overcame my inhibitions and now I have no objection to posing nude for photographers whose artistic integrity is unquestioned."
