The myth of the Pirelli Cal

It was the 1964 edition that introduced the Pirelli calendar to international stardom. The pictures, by the Beatles photographer Robert Freeman, were sexy and, at the same time, warm and friendly.
The models, framed on and off the beaches of the south of France, still shocked a gently swinging Britain as it emerged from the austere Fifties.


By 1974, The Cal had become a status symbol. So, it came as a big surprise when Pirelli decided to stop publishing its calendar because of two oil crisis.
Then, silence. "Oh no!" wailed The Sun , "They've fired all the pin-ups!"


Finally in 1984, the oil crises were only a memory and the calendar came back with Uwe Ommer. In 1994, the calendar had become part of the international Pirelli Group's communications portfolio: Herb Ritt (1994) and Richard Avedon (1995) portrayed supertopmodels like Cindy Crawford , Kate Moss, Helena Christensen and Naomi Campbell.

During the first forty years of its publication, the Pirelli calendar has provided an extraordinary array of imagery. The now 35 editions of the Pirelli Calendar provide an enduring suggestion to the metamorphosis of our society