Girls, Girls, Girls: A Look Back at 50 Years of the Pirelli Calendar

Of all the genius marketing schemes cooked up in the history of business, the Pirelli Calendar—arguably the world’s most titillating way of keeping track of time—is close to the top. The calendar, which was first launched in 1964, was initially simply promotional material for the Italian company’s tires, but the creative latitude extended to its contributors quickly piqued the interest of some of the world’s greatest photographers (Herb Ritts, Peter Beard, Nick Knight) and models (Catherine Deneuve, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss) who gamely partnered up for the project over the years, flying off to destinations like Brazil and Botswana with a lot of inspiration and very little in the way of clothes. “There is just something about that calendar,” says model Alessandra Ambrosio, who posed for both Patrick Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh for a special anniversary shoot in New York. “It is something people always look forward to, and the pictures are so natural—they are sensual and sexy, but there is something so beautiful about them, [they are] like works of art.” In preparing the 1986 calendar, Pirelli commissioned Helmut Newton, who worked alongside stylist Manuela Pavesi until an urgent family matter pulled him away from the project. Photographer Bert Stern ended up shooting the final product, and Newton’s calendar was never published—until now. For the 50th anniversary, it was decided that, instead of producing a new calendar, the never-before-seen in their entirety, black-and-white images shot in Chianti and Monte Carlo would at last be put forth. In celebration of the golden anniversary, we look back at our favorite images from the past half-century of the Pirelli Calendar, including the work of Helmut Newton.