For years I’d heard of the elusive Pirelli Calendar. The annual artsy, nudie calendar that was so rare that few have ever seen one. Of the car guys I know, there are only a couple who’ve actually laid their hands on one. They’ve never had their own copy.
The 2007 issue may be the most special ever, as it contains images of the still sexy Sophia Loren, along with a bevy of younger starlets.
Today, I got confirmation that I’ve won a contest held for automotive journalists by Pirelli’s Canadian promotional firm. My very own copy of the 2007 Pirelli Calendar is waiting for me to pick it up! I’m so excited! I’ll be posting pics as soon as I can.
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Share it!
well…I may not share it, but I’ll definitely show it off! That’s kinda like sharing.
It’s okay if you want to scan them in a month at a time and dish them out as the calendar ticks away. That would be okay with us.
hhmmm….I don’t know if it’ll fit on the scanner bed. Pics anyway.
The Pirelli Calendar was first published in the 1960’s as a promotional effort when Pirelli’s image was drawing blank stares in Britain. The subjects were internationally-known models photographed in the nude or near-nude by some of the world’s best photographers. Francis Giacobetti, at that time art director of Lui magazine (France’s answer to Playboy) shot the first Calendar and continued to do so for several years. You couldn’t buy one; heck, you couldn’t have a copy unless your name was on a very exclusive list, which included entertainers, nobility, politicians, members of the arts community and, strangely, selected ad agency art directors.
In the early 70’s I was a Canadian working in Britain for American ad agency J. Walter Thompson. JTW had transferred me from its Ford group in New York to be creative director of its European Accounts Group, whose primary client was Ford of Europe. One of our first tasks was to improve the dependability image in Scandinavian countries of the Ford 20M, a mid-size sedan. We came up with the idea of driving a team of 20M’s 24,000 miles around the Arctic Circle in winter, non-stop except for refuelling and driver’s rest periods.
Not surprisingly the concept, though imaginative, was unworkable due to a lack of roads circumnavigating the Circle. But the client liked the idea so we changed it to 24,000 miles above the Arctic Circle, a do-able proposition in Northern Sweden and Lapland. My art director, David Barker, suggested Giacobetti (who normally went by his last name) as photographer and, thrilled by the idea of working with someone who’d become famous taking pictures of nude beauties, I agreed. Incidentally, David had not been a recipient of a Pirelli Calendar. He probably hoped that Giacobetti would give him one.
When we arrived in Stockholm for an overnight stay before flying north to our home base in Lulea “Giaco,” as we called him, headed straight for the porn shops to buy some magazines. He claimed it was “research.” A few weeks later I used him for another shoot, this one on a narrow winding road outside Paris for the small and frugal Ford Escort (the ad was headlined “It Grabs the Road, Not Your Wallet”). That year Pirelli decided it was time to change photographers and so did we, or at least the suits did as they were becoming suspicious of David and I cavorting with someone of Giacobetti’s reputation. Perhaps they were miffed because Pirelli’d left them off the list of Calendar recipients.
For a period of ten years Pirelli discontinued the Calendar but eventually wiser heads prevailed and it returned, still produced as a work of art and printed on the best papers to a very high standard. Examples hang on the walls of galleries and museums worldwide, for the Calendar has become a valued collectible. When a new one bows, the launch party, attended by a crowd of fortunate celebrities, is held in an exotic and suitably spectacular London setting. In spite of my history with its original photographer I’ve never received a copy. What I really want is a date with Sophia.
Wow Philip,
Thanks so much for the story, it adds even more value to this magnificent piece of work we now have. We haven’t decided what to do with it yet (after of course we take a few pics)
We may just close up the box and put it downstairs with all those pristine copies of your old magazine!
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