HOT RUBBER 50 YEARS OF THE PIRELLI CALENDAR
IT is a hot and sunny afternoon on a beach just outside New York City, and I am admiring the view. But this is no ordinary sea view: it is a supermodel soup of a view. I have watched them trot out of the makeup room one by one, wrapped in white robes, and down to the shoreline where the set, wind machines and star photographer Peter Lindbergh lie in wait. Helena Christensen, Karolina Kurkova, Miranda Kerr, Alek Wek, Isabeli Fontana and Alessandra Ambrosio — it is a roll call of the lithe of limb.
The robes are discarded. Underneath, they are all in black swimsuits (later jumpers), each a little different from the others; supermodels have personalities, you know. Music blares, and as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Love Rollercoaster gets the models swaying, Lindbergh issues all those clichéd instructions you imagine on a shoot like this — “Cuddle up! Close up! Forward, forward! Super! Beautiful! Push it! Nice, nice!” — as the girls huddle together, fluff their hair, wrap limbs around each other. And all this work, all this primping, all this shutter-snapping is for . . . tyres.
This shoot and another in a New York studio with Patrick Demarchelier (“Get me Patrick!”) are to celebrate 50 years since the first Pirelli calendar (2014 will be a special halfcentury birthday edition) and, possibly, the greatest marketing tool ever created. Because the Pirelli calendar turned tyres into luxury items, it made wheels sexy.
Everyone on these two shoots has been involved in the process before. Both photographers have done two calendars (Lindbergh in 1996 and 2002, Demarchelier in 2005 and 2008) — there is an unspoken rule that no photographer can do more than two, but actually they probably can if the right project arises — and all of the models have been “months” before, some several times. Fontana, for instance, has done six.
So what sets it apart? Why does everyone involved in a Pirelli calendar describe it as iconic, a career changer, an honour, especially when you consider it started life as an upmarket take on the topless calendars you find in most garages, the idea of the UK Pirelli sub-
The calendar is possibly the greatest marketing tool ever created
sidiary? For starters, everything about the calendar is exclusive. You cannot ask to take part; you have to be invited. And they only invite the best. You cannot buy it; the 20 000 or so copies produced each year are not for sale — they are given to VIPs chosen by Pirelli. Each year’s project is kept secret, which builds excitement. The models, photographers and everyone else involved sign nondisclosure agreements. The details are revealed in November — this year at a big event in Milan on November 21.
The Pirelli body has always been strong, rather than waiflike. Though nudity has featured heavily, the calendar has also sought to move beyond the physical aspect of top models, showcasing Sophia Loren when she was 72, for example, in 2007. Men, too, have made appearances. The 1988 calendar was the first to have a man in every picture.
The mood of the Pirelli calendar has shifted over the years, particularly as the female segment of the car world has grown. Although always about celebrating beauty, from about 1994 the calendar has had a broader appeal.
Then there are the pictures themselves. Although each year’s theme is chosen by Pirelli, the photographer (always a big name) is given full creative freedom, and all the travel and locations are top end. “Pirelli is not a job really. You do what you want. It’s very liberating,” says Demarchelier.
And even though the women are often acquainted with only a minimum of clothing fabric (if any), it is somehow always tasteful, always about “celebrating women in all their shapes and sizes and colours”, as Wek puts it. It is aspirational. It is escapism. It is out of reach. And the combination just cannot be replicated.
“About 25 companies have asked me to do a calendar like Pirelli,” says Lindbergh. “They want chocolate or machines in the picture. What do I tell them? In English? ‘Why don’t you f*** off and ask somebody else?’ ” — © The Times, London