Pirelli unveils new calender beauties
RIO DE JANEIRO - The Associated Press
US model Summer Rayne Oakes and Brazilian model Adriana Lima (below) pose for the 2013 Pirelli calendar, which has been recently delivered.
After taking it all off for 39 straight years, the notoriously racy Pirelli calendar has buttoned up, delivering a 2013 edition Nov. 27 in flamboyant Rio de Janeiro of all places with nary a nude in sight.Still, with a cast including Brazilian top models Isabeli Fontana and Adriana Lima posing in lush locations around Rio, the calendar is still steamy despite all those clothes. Clad in short shorts or slip-dresses, the models gaze out from between verdant palm fronds at the Botanical Garden, strike catlike poses in hillside slums, or shoot come-hither gazes from the somber depths of decadent samba nightclubs.
This demure, covered-up twist on the Italian tire maker’s iconically saucy calendar was the brainchild of American
photojournalist and war photographer Steve McCurry, who said he accepted Pirelli’s offer
to take on the coveted assignment on the condition he
could do it his way.
Socially committed beauties
The team selected socially committed beauties including Petra Nemcova, the Czech model who founded the Happy Hearts Fund in the wake of the 2004 tsunami to help children hit by natural disasters, American environmental crusader Summer Rayne Oakes and Brazilian actress and child rights advocate Sonia Braga. McCurry suggested that shooting the 11 women fully clothed allows the viewer to see them as fully formed people, with ideas and initiatives and projects, as opposed to straight-out sex objects.
Still, it remains to be seen whether the calendar will remain as socially aware, not to mention as fully dressed, next year. Company executives said it would depend on the direction the photographer who is selected next year wants to take the project.
The 2013 edition marked the third time it has been shot in Brazil, following the 2005 and 2010 editions.
