In a radical departure from its usual style, Italian tyre company Pirelli’s calendar for the new year features women looking comfortable. This is a shift from its brief these past five decades, which has been one long ode to the ‘perfect’ female form, ie long legs, perky breasts, flat tummies and inner thighs of steel. It’s the vision that inspired the Kingfisher Calendar. But for 2016, Pirelli went a different way. For this calendar, Annie Leibovitz shot twelve women, not all models, in the spirit that best describes them. So Serena Williams is all bunched muscle and fluid grace, Yoko Ono displays pure cheek in a top hat, tuxedo coat and stockings, Patti Smith is calm defiance, Tavi Gevinson slouches under the weight of her own cool and Amy Schumer looks like we walked in on her dressing for a sketch. This is how the comedian introduced the calendar on Twitter: “Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman. Thank you @annieleibovitz”
That says it all, really.
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Photographs: Annie Leibovitz/Pirelli
