Save The Date
Some products, like car tires, don’t just sell themselves. And for those products, there’s sex. Since 1964, with a few omissions (notably some lean years during the oil shock of the 70′s and early 80′s), legendary tire manufacturer Pirelli has commissioned a (let’s be honest) girlie calendar to market its brand outside the Formula One and World Superbike sets. Shot by some of the world’s leading fashion photographers, the Pirelli Calendar has featured the hottest, sometimes unfortunately-costumed but otherwise naked, nubiles this side (that would be the posher, superbranded side) of the Victoria’s Secret runway. The calendars are not for sale and, as such, are understandably highly coveted… or at least they were until the interwebs came along and blew the tires off (see what we did there?) the whole secret, high-end calendar collecting thing.
The calendars, taken as a collectible, collected whole, serve as a sort of a pin-up timeline and showcase the good (Uwe Ommer in 1984, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in 2007), the bad (Clive Arrowsmith’s back-to-back head scratchers in 1991 and 1992) and the ugly (Nick Knight in 2004) of commoditized nudie picture art direction. Last year, too-old-for-this Karl Lagerfeld served up the most uninspiring, tepid Pirelli calendar since Peter Lindbergh inexplicably photographed the always hot Julia Stiles doing her best Diane Keaton in 2002. This year, Mario Sorrenti finds better traction with photos that, even given the context, somehow empower and embolden the female body. Hot.
All images copyright Pirelli
2-column, Art, Format, Main, Photography