Even as the Pirelli Calendar flaunts its fiftieth anniversary with a previously unseen shoot by Helmut Newton, it’s easy to forget that powerful images of impossibly beautiful women were not always the norm. The original Calendar was a novel experiment in luxury marketing, devised by art director Derek Forsyth in 1964 to set a then-fledgling tire maker apart from the competition.
“We wanted to create something to be hung up at the front of the mechanic’s shop,” said Forsyth at Pirelli’s recent birthday celebrations in Milan, “rather than on some grubby locker in the back.”
Surrounded by a floating gallery of iconic photos from years gone by, Forsyth reflected on a lifetime of memorable moments as the Calendar’s primary creative director. “It’s been quite an experience,” he mused. “Half of my time on earth has been spent doing that.” Decades passed working with the 20th century’s best photographers, jetting to the world’s most glamorous destinations, and hanging out with the era’s most beautiful women? Sounds like a life well spent.
“When we launched the first calendar we looked to magazines – ones like Nova and Town that were very forward-looking and featured great imagery – as the nucleus for our photographers. Robert Freeman was chosen for the first calendar because his work was very graphic. If he took a picture of a girl’s face, it would be framed perfectly. In that picture there was an expression that told you something.
The first shoot took place in Majorca, simply because we could actually go there; in those days no-one took an airplane to Tunisia or the Seychelles. So we flew to Barcelona and then jumped on a boat from there. The shoot was painless but the Calendar didn’t exactly take off in the first year, let’s put it that way. Initially the salesmen were like, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Then people started talking about it, we started sending it out to The Beatles and other influential people… After that, everything changed.
Harry’s second calendar was shot in California at a time when the Beach Boys were all the rage. He’d been doing a film out there and he said: “We don’t need to take models, there are loads of girls just hanging on the beach.” In those days you didn’t have any make-up artists, you didn’t have any hairdressers; Harry just put his cameras in a bag and off we went.
Turns out Harry had miscalculated slightly because he’d been in California during the school holidays and so all these girls were just hanging about. When we went back, they were all back in the classroom, so we had to go and scope all the surf beaches to find new models.
Harry’s calendar shoots were always a memorable experience. I remember we rented this big house in Los Angeles that had once belong to Tyrone Power and took a lot of pictures there. At one point, this big guy wandered in and asked if we’d seen [Power]. Harry said: “If I’ve seen Tyrone Power, you must be Jesus.” Of course, Tyrone Power had been dead for years.
Working with Sarah Moon was quite an experience. She was the first woman to shoot the calendar, and the tension was remarkable. Sarah is a lovely woman but there was always this disparity between me trying to do a calendar and her trying to protect the models; if I asked if we could move the girl to the left, she’d ask why. So that was interesting. Funnily enough, the images she produced were some of the most sexually suggestive ones we’d seen.
We always gave the photographers complete creative freedom. You picked them because of the way they chose to do things, so what would be the point in trying to get them to do something else?
The most important thing was to work as team. We’d try not to make [the Calendar shoots] feel like a deliberate project; we’d go on location a few days earlier so it was more relaxed and we had a chance to get used to each other. On the shoot we did with Hans Feurer, we headed out to the Seychelles with the models a week before. That enabled them to relax: we’re just hanging out, he’s not shooting any pictures, just snapshots. By the time we came to do the shoot, the models trusted us. They didn’t feel we were peeping.
If I had to choose, I’d say Herb Ritts produced my favourite calendars. I love the pictures and he was such an incredible man. I developed a very close friendship with him before he died.
Each calendar is a reflection of the times. The year we shot with Herb Ritts, there was a lot of criticism of the objectification of women in Page Three. I really wanted to do something that showed them in a different light. They might have been half-clothed, but this wasn’t a sleazy pin-up.
The 1994 shoot took place in the Bahamas. Why? It was easy to get to, we knew the islands well, and it was easy for Cindy Crawford to fly down from L.A. with Richard Gere. The logistics were always an important factor in deciding where to shoot. Models are an expensive parcel; you can’t afford to keep them hanging round if it’s raining.
Richard was a funny guy. He was almost cuddly; an elderly man, very mellow, but very, very determined to execute his vision. Some of the girls found him difficult to work with. He had this metal breastplate made for Christy Turlington and she was shocked when she put it on; it was a strong, overtly sexual thing. But Avedon was a great psychologist. I once flew all the way to New York to meet him and he didn’t even turn up. I was allowed to talk to his PA but not him; that was how he played his power game.”
Richard Avedon, 1997
Steve McCurry, 2013
John Claridge, 1993
Clive Arrowsmith, 1992
Herb Ritts, 1994
Herb Ritts, 1992
Barry Lategan, 1988
Hans Feurer, 1974
Sarah Moon, 1972
Harry Peccinotti, 1969
Harry Peccinotti, 1968
Robert Freeman, 1964
