Patti Smith, November
PIRELLI CALENDER, 2016
The iconic Pirelli calender. Every year its creation, symbolising the impending start of yet another year (life why must you go so fast?!), garners widespread media attention from the masses. Normally noted for its featuring of extremely beautiful and extremely glamorous supermodels, with equally amazing bodies to match, this year Italian auto-mobile manufacturer Pirelli, has taken a somewhat different approach. Instead of each month displaying a scantily clad woman who has seemingly won every gene lottery going, Pirelli has decided to use their calender as a showcase of real women. Inspiring women. And what I mean by that, is instead of showcasing the amazing physical attributes of women, they have instead chosen to focus on something equally amazing, if not more so: the woman herself in all her glory and imperfection. The person within. Admittedly it doesn't quite make sense for Pirelli to go down the whole feminist route for their calender, after all, they are an auto-mobile manufacturer, though I for one am definitely not complaining. You have to admire and applaud an entity with such strong media influence, such as Pirelli, for using its influence so positively and constructively. What a fabulous message to transmit. An all female calender with the women actually wearing clothes. Amazing. Though it seems almost absurd in this day and age, even to myself as a young woman. I imagine that some men are probably gagging at the sight of a woman actually wearing clothes on a calender. But I guess it just goes to show how desensitised we as a society, to the notion of women being portrayed in that very intimate and revealing way, and it's probably about time that as women we wrestled that control back. Yes us girls should flaunt our bodies, they're fabulous after all, but we should definitely be flaunting everything else we have going for us too!
So for this rather monumental 43rd calendar ushering in 2016, Pirelli teamed up with esteemed and rather legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz to photograph thirteen of the world's most inspirational women. Key female figures absolutely smashing it when it comes to girl power. Female icons that are out there right now, actively doing their thing for girlkind. Female icons that both genders can look up to and both genders should respect. The criteria was simply that the woman had to be of outstanding professional, social, cultural, sporting or artistic accomplishment. Naturally the selecting of these thirteen women was therefore a somewhat difficult task, as like I previously mentioned, girl power is on fire right now. But they managed it somehow of course, with the chosen models including incredibly funny comedienne Amy Schumer, my all time female inspirations Tavi Gevinson and Patti Smith, tennis superstar Serena Williams and Russian supermodel and charity worker Natalia Vodianova. All these amazing, brilliant, fantastic women, photographed so stunningly in striking monochrome, by the equally inspiring Annie Leibovitz. A beautifully honest phogography collection and a symbolic representation of the flaming juggernaut that is girlkind, continually firing away and picking up speed, soaring to new heights females could only dream of a century ago. Never before have I felt so proud and excited to be a woman, and more so when I see these photographs from Pirelli of so many incredible, inspiring women. It may be one small step for girls, but it's one humongous step for girlkind. Pirelli, you done good.
INSPIRE AWAY...
001. Foreword Yao Chen
002. March Agnes Lund & Sadie Rain Hope Gund
003. April Serena Williams
004. August Tavi Gevinson
005. December Amy Schumer
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