Since its launch in 1964, the Pirelli Calendar has become one of the highlights of the fashion year.
For more than six decades, the annual publication – known as “The Cal” – has been bringing together the world’s most captivating faces and in-demand photographers: think Kate Moss being captured by Herb Ritts for the 1994 edition, or Annie Leibovitz photographing Serena Williams in 2016.
The 2027 edition maintains that glamorous tradition, but this time with a focus on India: it features stars including the actress Freida Pinto, the model Bhavitha Mandava, the TV presenter and model Padma Lakshmi and the sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar.
Anoushka – the daughter of Ravi Shankar, arguably the most famous sitarist of them all – is delighted to have been included in “an amazing line-up of women”, she says.
“I think they’ve made some lovely choices. I wouldn’t want to be in charge of choosing 12 women, because my brain went to 30, 50 as soon as they said it was happening.
“I grew up aware of the calendar, but it was never in my frame of reference that I’d be asked to be in it.”
Posing in a “punky” sheer Rick Owens dress in Rajasthan was a joy for Anoushka, 45. “It’s real,” she tells hello!. “An Indian woman would be completely edgy and punky. Even if it’s a Pirelli calendar, it’s very much about who you are. I love that they did something I didn’t expect.”
Capturing the pose, in which Anoushka smiles through droplets of water, was a “crazy experience” that involved being doused by giant hoses on a “really elevated wooden platform”, offering a reminder of the monsoon season that she loves.
“It’s always meant a lot to me. Sometimes I would even plan to be [in India] for it as a young adult.” She explains that it feeds her creativity, “that feeling of release, the shift when you see nature change”.
© From the backstage of the Pirelli Calendar 2027 by Sølve Sundsbø and Raghu Rai with Avani Rai, picture by Alessandro ScottiFor Anoushka – who last month performed in London with Gorillaz, co-hosted the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition Preview Party and curated a cultural evening for Refugee Week at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank – the calendar’s focus on India is “beautiful”.
She adds: “For young people growing up, [saying] ‘here’s a calendar of beautiful people from India’ is just gorgeous.
“Growing up in London, there was a spillover of National Front stuff in the atmosphere. When I moved to the States [aged 11], there was a lot of ignorance, a complete lack of knowledge about [India] and maybe the idea that it was backwards and primitive. There’s been a huge shift since then, which is really empowering.”
Who is behind the 2027 Pirelli calendar?
For the first time in the calendar’s history, the 2027 edition will feature the work of two photographers: the renowned Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø, who returned to the project after conceiving the 2026 calendar, and the Indian photojournalist Raghu Rai, who died in April and whose daughter, the photographer Avani Rai, committed herself to realising her father’s plans.
“The work my father created for Pirelli was a tribute to India,” Avani says. “I cannot bear the thought of it remaining unrealised. When I took this on, I took it back to the streets, because that’s where he came from.
“Bringing it to life feels deeply personal, as if I’m stepping into his gaze and the way he saw India through his camera.”
© From the backstage of the Pirelli Calendar 2027 by Sølve Sundsbø and Raghu Rai with Avani Rai, picture by Alessandro ScottiSølve says: “It was very clear to me as a white, middle-aged, middle-class dude that I have no right, in any way, shape or form, to try to capture the essence of India.” Raghu, he says, was a “photography god – he’s part of the lexicon of photography.”
The project provided a profound insight into Indian culture; Sølve cites his work with the actress Aditi Rao Hydari, a huge Bollywood star with royal lineage.
“I remember shooting Aditi and then driving through Jaipur, where there were huge posters of her everywhere,” he says. “I think she’s beautiful and I admire her career, but you don’t understand it on a proper level until you go there. If she was on the street here, there would have been 100,000 people crowding us.”
Although Avani’s work featured street photography, Sølve focused on the portraits for which he is renowned. “I photographed people I admire,” he says. “I think the two things together – the heritage of the calendar and a completely new part – are brave, interesting, cool and very beautiful.”
For more, visit pirelli.com
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