PIRELLI CALENDAR history

For more than forty years each Pirelli Calendar has been a collection of images expressing a specific concept of feminine beauty.

The Pirelli Calendar's art directors and photographers have always offered a very sophisticated concept of beauty, mid-way between glamour and fashion.

Although the variety of authors and the complexity of styles, the Pirelli Calendar is a singular idea of photographic beauty, which reflects the spirit of our times.


It has often suggested itineraries in far away places, like the Bahamas, the Seychelles, Maiorca and Tunisia, or, in some occasions, under the lights of a city studio.

The natural locations of sea and surf, cloud, sky and desert sands, with anatomies of rocks and femininity removes the photographic idea from the context and from every day life.
The Pirelli Calendar gives life to our fantasies, extracting light, colour and form from the project itself.

Norman Parkinson in 1985; the post-modern Arthur Elgort in 1990 and the famous Richard Avedon in 1995: in the end, each one offers his or her ideal of beauty, a mixture of nature, and femininity. Over a period of more than 40 years the Pirelli Calendars have shaken the media world with their audacity, innovation and spectacular imagery.
The Pirelli Calendar has redefined the rules of glamorous photography.

The Calendar has redefined the rules of glamorous photography; by tradition Calendars were hung on garage walls - now they hang in museums, and Pirelli have gone on redefining those rules year after year.
Such is the Pirelli Calendar.