NEW PIRELLI CALENDAR AND NOT A PIN-UP IN SIGHT
FIRST published in 1964, the Pirelli Calendar used to be a fairly straightforward proposition: a VIP client perk for trade partners of the famous Italian tyre brand.
It was an unapologetically sexist celebration of sexy women, something designed to please the grease monkeys.Terence Donovan shot the first one, a simple but classy assemblage of bikini-clad lovelies. Since then it has become a rite of passage for all celebrated photographers and models, from Herb Ritts to Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino to Bruce Weber, Norman Parkinson and more.
Helena Christensen, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, Sophie Dahl, Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum: the roll call of beauties who have bared all in the name of art and rubber reads like a Who’s Who of every model/ actress/whatever to have graced a red carpet or the pages of a glossy magazine. But the latest one features a quite different collection of characters – including rap stars and a drag queen – supposedly recreating Alice In Wonderland. Sexy it ain’t.
Over the years the calendar has chronicled changing fashions and aesthetics, always within the narrow parameters of its brief: to be the ultimate in naughty chic, a deliciously wicked, transgressive fantasy.
Recently, though, things have taken a rather different direction. Stephen Meisel’s 2015 calendar was the last to feature anything remotely resembling a Pirelli girl, including British model Karen Elson topless in a classic Hollywood starlet pose and US supermodel Gigi Hadid in dominatrix-style black rubber. Instead, 2016’s was shot by Annie Leibovitz, with not a supermodel in sight. In their place a fairly random assemblage of ‘inspirational’ females better known for their brains than their bosoms.
The nudity now was ironic: the comedian Amy Schumer in high heels and a pair of knickers, her soft tummy folds unapologetically on display, a takeaway coffee in hand; singer-songwriter Patti Smith, bare-faced and fully clothed in jeans and Doctor Martens; Yoko Ono, in top hat and tuxedo, her spindly legs clad in black tights; and tennis champion Venus Williams, muscular like a Greek warrior.
If the grease monkeys were less than thrilled by Leibovitz’s take, then 2017’s cannot have improved matters. Not a hint of sweat and smoulder, just a line up of actresses ‘sérieuses’, make-up free and wearing simple leotards: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Uma Thurman, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren. Beautiful but the very opposite of steamy.
There is something sanctimonious about this about-turn in tone which speaks to one of the least joyous social trends of our times: a virtue signalling culture that has lost all sense of mischief. Nevertheless, there is a certain logic. In a world saturated by the influences of online porn, nudity has little shock value any more.
CREATING something genuinely subversive – which has always been the point of the Pirelli calendar – is very hard to do. Perhaps the solution is to go in a completely different direction altogether. To produce a postporn Pirelli calendar that turns the entire notion on its head. Perhaps, then, that was the premise behind 2018’s interpretation, styled by none other than the new editor of British Vogue, Edward Enninful.
It’s certainly not sexy in any way – the models are wearing more clothes than an Eskimo in January. The Alice In Wonderland theme is played out by models, rappers, actors and a drag queen. Thus we have two blokes wearing brown cowls and dressed as playing cards; a young woman in what appears to be a giant blue Nylon quilt; Naomi Campbell in some sort of mesh arrangement worn over a double-breasted suit; Sean Combs (aka rapper P. Diddy) in padded shoulder-pads and neck chains; the albino model Thando Hopa, dressed like a Victorian bride; and Ru Paul, TV’s favourite drag queen, upholstered like the world’s campest sofa.
I can’t imagine that lot blowing any gaskets. In fact, I’ve never seen such a collection of glum faces. Even Ru Paul seems to be less than her exuberant self. The reason for this, it transpires, is that this is not just a calendar shoot, it is, in fact, as Mr Combs recently told the New York Times: ‘A chance to push social consciousness and breakdown barriers.’
Or, as Vogue’s new boss Enninful puts it: ‘Given the state of the world we live in, sometimes I think we all feel like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. For me, a retelling of Alice for the modern world was a perfect project.’ The thing about pushing boundaries – as Enninful thinks he is – is that there has to be a coherent purpose. And try as I might, I simply cannot find it in these pictures.
The whole notion of ‘retelling Alice for the modern world’ is some of the most pretentious twaddle I’ve ever seen or heard. At best, it looks a bit of a mess, at worst it’s a complete disaster. I’m sure Conde Nast would not have hired Enninful if they were not convinced he is up to the job. But if this frankly hideous photo-fantasy is any indication of his work, then either someone has a strange sense of humour or they have seriously miscalculated and they – and the readers of Vogue – are in for a nasty surprise.