DANISH IMPORT
October playmate majken haugedal makes the most of her scandinavian beauty by bunnying and modeling in Montreal
Canada's erstwhile image this side of the border as a land of few surprises -- a notion once and for all contradicted by the success of its swinging Expo and the panache
... of its new prime minister -- should be put to rest by Montreal Bunny Majken Haugedal, a transplanted Danish beauty whose current life epitomizes the international Sixties' style. Mike -- "It's so much less confusing than Majken" -- immigrated with her family to an exurb of Montreal when she was 13, and a year ago last summer, after modeling school and a stint as a cosmetics demonstrator in a Montreal department store, began the busy routine that has made her one of the Quebec capital's most popular Bunnies and most sought-after mannequins. "Except for the fact that my days seem about five hours too short," Mike says, "the two careers have been wonderfully compatible. The sort of outgoing personality you have to develop to be a really good Bunny has helped me project myself in ads, too." Montreal lensmen have been concentrating on Mike's face, which in at least one case has proved almost too picture perfect to be true: "The art director for Avon here," Mike recalls, "sent my agent a photo of a green-eyed, blonde, sweet-and-innocent type, saying that she had the look he wanted. It was uncanny how much she looked like me; my agent said it was the easiest request she ever filled." As the modeling jobs have become more frequent, Miss October has cut back to just two or three nights of Bunnying a week. "I'd be too tired to be my best self at the Club if I worked much more than that," Mike says. "It's not so much the photo sessions themselves that make modeling so hectic, but all the preparations, like test shots and hair appointments."
Headquarters for Mike's two careers -- and for her dinner-and-dancing social life -- is a slice-of-pie apartment in a cylindrical Montreal high-rise. When not plying guests there with a favorite fondue or smørrebrød, she's apt to be found on off-evenings at the ballet in Montreal's gleaming new Place des Arts or dancing herself in an out-of-the-way discothèque. "I think it's part of the city's Frenchness," says Mike, "that our discos are tinier and much more intimate than those in New York or Chicago. Even on a night when you know no one but your date, it seems like a private party."
Miss October plans to satisfy her admitted penchant for things Parisian with a leisurely European trip this winter. She'll start with a visit to relatives in Denmark, fly south -- "probably to Greece" -- for a rest and then alight in the City of Light, where she hopes to keep in posing practice. "I've never seriously considered trying my luck in New York, where the girls are all tall-tall," says our 5'5" Miss October, "but I think there's a chance I'll have good luck in Paris." Chances are it's the Parisians who'll consider themselves lucky.
