The Pirelli Calendar, known and trade-marked as “The Cal”, is an annual trade calendar published by the UK subsidiary of the Italian tyre manufacturing company Pirelli since 1964. The calendar has a reputation for choosing photographers and models and featured glamour photography from the 1980s until the 2010s.

The calendar is produced with limited availability (20,000 are printed annually). Copies are not on sale but are given as corporate gifts to celebrities and select Pirelli customers. The annual production cost was about US$2 million in 2017. Marco Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli’s CEO from 1992 to 2022, commented that the purpose of the Cal is “to mark the passing of time” by recording the zeitgeist.
History

The Cal was created by the British art director Derek Forsyth. After an unpublished mockup in 1962, it became an annual publication from 1964. Pirelli tyres featured prominently in some of the earlier calendars, though this marketing aspect was later dropped. The first woman photographer to shoot the calendar was Sarah Moon in 1972. The publication was discontinued after the 1974 issue as an economizing cutback in response to the world recession resulting from the 1973 oil crisis. It was resurrected ten years later and has been published regularly except for 2021.

The first ten years of the calendar’s existence included photographs of fully clothed women, but an emphasis on nudity developed during the 1980s. The 1987 calendar, photographed by Terrence Donovan, was the first to feature only black models, including a bare-bottomed 16-year-old Naomi Campbell. The models were photographed topless in Savannah-like settings and styled in tribal fashion. The calendar continued to use mainly eroticised images until the mid-2010s. However, in some instances, the photographers’ pictures were considered too risqué for the editors.

From the mid-2010s, the calendar moved away from eroticism, and around this time, diversity began to be addressed. The 2008 calendar was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier in Shanghai and included several Asian models. At the same time, Mondadori published a book, The Complete Works: The Pirelli Calendar 1964–2007. The 2010 calendar, photographed by Terry Richardson, used similar imagery to that used in the calendar in the 1960s. In 2014, Pirelli released an unpublished calendar from 1986, shot by photographer Helmut Newton. A 50th anniversary book, Pirelli – The Calendar: 50 Years and More, was published by Taschen in 2015.

The 2016 calendar, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, aimed to celebrate women for their accomplishments rather than their physical attributes. It included Fran Lebowitz, Mellody Hobson, Serena Williams, Yoko Ono and Patti Smith to represent inspiring women of diverse ages in almost entirely clothed portraits. Peter Lindbergh photographed the 2017 calendar, and the women in the photographs were fully dressed and wore minimal makeup. It was the first calendar in which the pictures had not been retouched. The women photographed included Helen Mirren, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore. For the 2018 calendar, photographer Tim Walker chose to feature only black models, including Duckie Thot, Adwoa Aboah, RuPaul, Whoopi Goldberg, and Thando Hopa.

The 2021 calendar was cancelled because of the global coronavirus pandemic but returned for 2022, featuring musicians and titled On The Road. In 2024, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cal, Prince Gyasi became the first black photographer to produce an edition of the calendar.