Victoria Silvstedt spent New Year's Eve 1995 in Monte Carlo, at a party attended by Prince Albert and other dignitaries. "I could never have dreamed how my year would end. To go from my tiny village to being Miss December in Playboy--my head is spinning," says the former Miss Sweden. Victoria's story began in Bollnäs, a speck on the map not far from the Arctic Circle. After high school she moved to Stockholm, where the tall blonde beauty turned heads. At 19, Victoria entered the Miss Sweden pageant, which she won with perfect swimsuit form and her iceberg-melting smile. Then came three years as a well-known Paris-based model. Finally, in early 1996, she acted on a lifelong fantasy: to be a centerfold girl in the U.S. Playboy. Miss December 1996 made that dream come true in her typical go-for-it style. One day she simply appeared at the door of our West Coast offices in Beverly Hills. "I want to try out for Playmate," Victoria said. We were instantly convinced, and in her Playmate pictorial we called Victoria "blondeness perfected."
Something happened the moment December's Playboy hit the stands. Within hours Victoria's photos were all over cyberspace, and she had an instant Internet fan club. With modern fame measured in hit points, she was an international celeb. Fellow skiers did double takes: "Miss December?" Now she has another title: Victoria Silvstedt is our Playmate of the Year.
Soon after her Playmate appearance this past December, Victoria received a call from the folks at Guess. Now she's the new Guess girl in a blockbuster national ad campaign. "I feel most comfortable in front of a camera," she says. Swedish TV has offered her a weekly series, but Victoria wants to succeed in the U.S., the land of her dreams. "Growing up in Bollnäs, I was dying to be here. Fashion, music, movies and TV--everything comes from America." When she was just a teen, one of her boyfriends, a heavy-metal musician, worshiped Metallica and took her to every Stockholm concert the band played. This year our new PMOY attended the American Music Awards as a backstage VIP. "I met Metallica! And Rod Stewart and Quincy Jones," she says. "This is what can happen to a girl in America." Happily single at 22, she recently split with her chic, possessive French amour. "He was OK when I was a model, but a Playboy Playmate? Non. He freaked out. I was getting too much attention from other men." As her fan mail piled up in their apartment near the Arc de Triomphe, he said she had to choose between him and her American dreams. "So now I am alone," says Victoria. Which is not the same as celibate. When asked what she thinks of American men, she can't help smiling. "Now that I've tried them, you mean? Well, I can still say I love everything American." Yet Victoria isn't really one to play the field. At heart she is still the village girl from the land of real reindeer. "My heart is still Swedish," she says. And there she was on New Year's Eve 1996: not in Monte Carlo or New York but at her parents' home in Bollnäs, lighting homemade sparklers and Roman candles, fireworks in a snowy sky.
