Next year’s Pirelli calendar will be filled with our lady role models
It’s possible you haven’t heard of it but the Pirelli calendar is huge in the fashion world. The calendar was first published in 1964, and landing a spread is a big deal. The calendar is known for blending together high fashion and nudity; it often evokes images of young pin-ups in scandalous poses. It also is known for its limited availability.
This year, the famed calendar is going for something radically different, and we’re behind the the new theme one million percent: that theme is female achievement. That’s right — the 2016 calendar will feature so many of our favorite women: Think Serena Williams, Amy Schumer, Tavi Gevinson. There will only be one fashion model featured this year, and none of the women will be nude, The Cut reports.
“I started to think about the roles that women play, women who have achieved something,” photographer Annie Leibovitz, who shot the calendar, said in a statement. “I wanted to make a classic set of portraits. I thought that the women should look strong but natural and I decided to keep it a very simple exercise of shooting in the studio.”
Although the calendar has shaken things up in previous years — keeping all women clothed in 2013 or taking inspiration from classic images of women in 2000 — this is an entirely different direction for the calendar that has been called in the past, as The Cut points out, “soft porn calendar promoting [tires],” “an anachronistic curiosity,” and “pinups for the auto elite.”
“This calendar is so completely different,” Leibovitz said in the statement. “It is a departure. The idea was not to have any pretense in these pictures and be very straightforward.”
Want to picture this badass, role-model-packed calendar for yourself? Here’s the full cast: Kathleen Kennedy, Yao Chen, Serena Williams, Yoko Ono, Mellody Hobson, Fran Lebowitz, Ava Duvernay, Agnes Gund, Patti Smith, Amy Schumer, Shirin Neshat, and Tavi Gevinson. Yeah, we’d love to have that hanging on our walls forever, please.
“I’ve seen a few of the photographs and they’re striking,” Smith said in an interview with Vogue. “I have no idea what the average recipient would [think], but I think that they should appreciate a bold move. We’ll see.”
“I feel completely unworthy . . . I’m honored,” Gevinson told Vogue. “I think it’s amazing to be a part of this group of women who are being celebrated for so many different things in something that’s traditionally celebrating one thing — which is also great!”
We’ll have to wait until the calendar goes live on October 30th (and fully revealed in London on November 30th) to see the finished product, but you can check out more from the calendar here. Feminism in a calendar? Hey, Pirelli, let’s make this a new tradition, shall we?
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[Images via Twitter]
