Pirelli Calendar 2012 Revealed
Warning! Dangerous (nude) curves above.
It should come as no big surprise that a company famous for its tires can really get people's motors running. And the 2012 Pirelli Calendar really drives that point home with naked shots of some of the most beautiful women in the world.
In previous years, the Italian company has tapped the likes of Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Arthur Elgort, Patrick Demarchelier, Bruce Weber, Mario Testino, Nick Knight and Karl Lagerfeld to shoot its famed annual calendar.
This year’s calendar, titled Swoon, was shot by Mario Sorrenti—his first time shooting for Pirelli, and ironically, the first-ever Italian photographer to shoot the calendar—in Corsica, France.
As for the lovely ladies in front of the camera? Models Isabeli Fontana, Natasha Poly, Saskia de Brauw, Lara Stone, Joan Smalls, Guinevere van Seenus, Edita Vilkeviciute, Kate Moss and Milla Jovovich, and actresses Margareth Madè and Rinko Kikuchi all posed au naturel for Sorrenti.
The nature-inspired images were shot in the forests, on the rocks, on the beaches, and in several beautiful old buildings around the island.
“It’s an incredibly prestigious honor—a huge accomplishment for a photographer,” Sorrenti said at the calendar’s unveiling press conference on December 6 in New York City, where Pirelli screened a behind-the-scenes video of the shoots while models like Poly, Smalls, Fontana and Kikuchi looked on.
While some of the models were new to Sorrenti, others have long-standing relationships with the photographer; Jovovich mentioned in the video that she’s known him since she was 17, and Moss and Sorrenti dated in the early ‘90s.
“I wanted to photograph girls that I knew really well,” Sorrenti said. Although there’s no Miss January or February in this calendar; instead, Sorrenti designed a portfolio-style calendar where the owner can insert any picture into any month. “I couldn’t figure out which month for the girls was appropriate, so we just let that go,” he said.
Physical copies of the calendar are only available to an über-exclusive selection of Pirelli VIPs—Sorrenti admitted himself that before this experience, he had never seen one in person—so no matter how good we were this year, it’s unlikely we’ll find one under the tree.
Check out the above slide show (warning! It's definitely NSFW) for a look at Kate Moss, Natasha Poly, Saskia de Brauw, Edita Vilkeviciute, and Margareth Madè in the 2012 Pirelli Calendar.
And in related news, check out Milla Jovovich in the 2012 Campari Calendar.
