The Pirelli calendar is back! To resurrect the photographic tome, which has featured some of the most provocative imagery from the art and fashion worlds, after a year’s hiatus, the tyre giant called in the big guns to star on its pages. Cher, Grimes, Jennifer Hudson, Normani, Rita Ora, Iggy Pop, St Vincent, Kali Uchis, Saweetie and Bohan Phoenix were captured by Bryan Adams in Los Angeles and Capri for the 48th edition, entitled On The Road.
“On the road is where I have been for the last 45 years, because the life of a musician is made up of roads, travel, waiting in hotels, hours back stage,” says Adams, who saw the project as an opportunity to bring together and celebrate artists of different ilks, after a period that has wreaked havoc on the touring side of the music industry.
Naturally, anything Cher – soon to be the subject of a major biopic – stars in is fabulous from the off. But the stripped-back pictures of her graffiti-ing the mirror of a green room find the “Believe” singer in a more contemplative mood than one might expect from the powerhouse. It’s Kali Uchis, photographed poolside at Chateau Marmont, and Rita Ora, draped over the side of a bath in liquid silver sequins, who dial up the glamour. While a shirtless Iggy and costumed Grimes bring a sense of otherworldliness to the line-up. Our favourite? J Hud serving diva realness at the Palace Theatre. Top marks for the art direction from Dirk Rudolph.
With the world still in turmoil, the calendar – which moved away from its soft-core calendar-girl aesthetic in 2016, when the Italian company invited Annie Leibovitz to shoot women celebrated for their accomplishments, rather than just their looks – provides escapism and unabashed glamour at a time when most of us can’t remember the last gig we went to. Channelling the electricity of that pre-show moment and post-show revelry is no mean feat, but Adams, who has no doubt head banged and danced with the best of them, conjures it up well, albeit in an unexpected format.
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