EYE: Albert Watson Unveils Pirelli 2019 Calendar With Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta + Julia Garner

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EYE: Albert Watson Unveils Pirelli 2019 Calendar With Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta + Julia Garner

The 2019 Pirelli calendar stars several of the world’s most famous women including Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta and Julia Garner with backup from Alexander Wang (with Gigi Hadid), Calvin Royal III (with Misty Copeland), Astrid Eika (with Julia Garner), and Sergei Polunin (with Laetitia Casta) — all lensed by celebrity photographer Albert Watson.

While the Pirelli calendar is more sensual than last year’s by Tim Walker, it is born of the #MeToo movement. The staged scenes of sex and debauchery — best lensed by Terry Richardson’s infamous image of Eniko Mihalik eating a banana — are gone.

Albert Watson, who is known for his cinematic images, chose to "show women who were dreaming of things."

The narratives were shot in Miami and New York and revolve around four glamorous female movie characters imagining their future success. Copeland, a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, plays the role of an aspiring dancer biding her time at a Miami strip club; Hadid is a stylish but bored and melancholy heiress; Casta performs as a bohemian painter; and actor Julia Garner plays a photographer.

"The Pirelli calendar was, at the bottom roots, a pinup calendar for mechanics when they changed tires," Watson said at his vast Manhattan studio last month.

"They held onto the sexy thing for a long period of time, and when it came time for me to do it, (it) seemed wrong to take models to the beach to take their tops off. It seemed out of time with the #MeToo movement."

Annie Leibovitz Presents Women of Distinction in Non-Babes 2016 Pirelli Calendar

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Annie Leibovitz Presents Women of Distinction in Non-Babes 2016 Pirelli Calendar

The Pirelli Calendar is noted for its annual issue of female bodies eye candy and also sensual beauty. With few exceptions -- Terry Richardson's calendar, for example -- Pirelli takes the high road in photographing women.

Pirelli's 2016 calendar #43 mines new ground in female imagery, tapping female photographer Annie Leibovitz to shoot 13 inspiring women -- artists, athletes, models, philanthropists and bloggers of every age and skin color. The omission of a Latina woman is noteworthy, unless I have my ethnicities mixed up. This is Leibovitz's second Pirelli calendar, as she shot the 2000 edition.

Leibovitz explains her vision behind this year's calendar, saying:

“I started to think about the roles that women play, women who have achieved something. I wanted to make a classic set of portraits. I thought that the women should look strong but natural, and I decided to keep it a very simple exercise of shooting in the studio,” Leibovitz said in a release. “This calendar is so completely different. It is a departure. The idea was not to have any pretense in these pictures and be very straightforward.” Needless to say, those looking for tropically set nude photos are in for a surprise.

Karl Lagerfeld | Pirelli Calendar 2011 | The Female Divinities & Muses Are Feminists

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Is it possible that Karl Lagerfeld has been reading my script? So many of his words about the Pirelli 2011 Calendar resonate.

Lagerfeld unveiled the Pirelli 2011 Calendar ‘Mythology’ at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow. the final package includes 36 photos total of 21 different “protagonists” — 15 female models, 5 male models including Lagerfeld muse Baptiste Giabiconi, and one Julianne Moore, who poses as the wife of Zeus.

Moore was in Moscow last night to attend a dinner in honor of the launch at the Stanislavsky Theater.

Models include Lara Stone (as Aphrodite, appropriately enough), Bianca Balti (as a Bacchante), Freja Beha Erichsen (as Apollo, Pollux, Orpheus), Isabeli Fontana (a Bacchante), Magdalena Frackowiak (as Athena, Estia), Anja Rubik (as Hermes, Terpsichore), Abbey Lee Kershaw (as Echo, Castor, Eurydice), Lakshmi Menon (a Bacchante), Heidi Mount (as Aurora, Amphitrite), Erin Wasson (as Ajax, a Bacchante), Natasha Poly (as Melpomene), Daria Werbowy (as Artemis, Penthesilea), and Iris Strubegger (as Athena).