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Pirelli calendar exclusively features people of colour, including Aussie Duckie Thot

Published: July 21 2017 - 8:58AM

On a muggy afternoon in May, in a heavily guarded studio hidden along a nondescript industrial North London back road, RuPaul, the actor, drag queen and TV personality, was holding court inside a padded box, wearing a resplendent scarlet red ball gown from which oversize playing cards tumbled from the voluminous skirt. Inches away, actor Djimon Hounsou stood staring, shirtless, sporting a gold crown and pinstripe trousers.

Hours earlier, actress Whoopi Goldberg had mugged for the cameras on that same set in rounded glasses, an oversize tunic the shape and colour of a tangerine, and a kaleidoscopic-patterned surcoat with a matching fur-lined hat. Later, rapper Sean Combs, in red velvet, and supermodel Naomi Campbell, in black latex, marched in together, wielding large axes.

Introducing the first protagonist of 2018 #PirelliCalendar, @Duckie_Thot in Tim Walker's Wonderland. Discover more: https://t.co/Rxb4KAXRk6 pic.twitter.com/X7zkuM6nr3

As to why - well, welcome to the 2018 Pirelli calendar, aka Stage 4 in the publication's transformation from upmarket nudie collectible to cultural barometer. This time around, the calendar has taken the form of a reimagining of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, with an all-black celebrity cast photographed by Tim Walker and styled by Edward Enninful, the new editor of British Vogue. What are they beheading? Old stereotypes and assumptions.

"Inclusivity is more part of the conversation than it has ever been before, but it goes far beyond black and white," Enninful said. "It is about all creeds, all colours, all sizes and people just living their truths. A lot of this is about digital giving people voices, and a new generation who refuse to compromise and want answers to the questions that matter to them. Given the state of the world we live in, sometimes I think we all feel like we've fallen down the rabbit hole. For me, a retelling of Alice for the modern world was a perfect project, particularly once the cast fell into place."

For Combs, who made headlines in 2001 when he posed with Campbell for a cover of British Vogue, the calendar comes at a time when there needs to be what he called "an unapologetic expression of black pride".

#Alice in wonderland !!! Go down the rabbit hole with the new @pirelli Calender. Photographed by #TimWalker, styled by me. @duckieofficial… pic.twitter.com/sDAwpHmMwx

For decades, the Pirelli calendar, first published by the Italian tire company of the same name in 1964, was a soft-core ode to beautiful women. Shot by A-list photographers and usually starring scantily clad supermodels, it is a collector's item and has never been sold on the open market. Instead, it is given to insiders - a group of establishment opinion-makers including celebrities, media professionals, politicians and chief executives, as well as to Pirelli's most valuable clients and distributors.

A year and a half ago, however, for the 2016 edition, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, the calendar's raison d'etre took a sharp turn from prurience to pride. Rather than celebrating women purely for their physical attributes, it started applauding their accomplishments, featuring such figures as writer Fran Lebowitz, investment manager Mellody Hobson and tennis champion Serena Williams.

Then, for the 2017 version, a cast of fully clothed and makeup-free actresses including Helen Mirren, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore were shot in black and white, unairbrushed, by Peter Lindbergh, the better to explore what the photographer described as a "different beauty, more real and truthful - one not manipulated by commercial interests".

There can only be one Queen: @RuPaul. Take a look at the behind-the-scenes content from the 2018 #PirelliCalendar: https://t.co/PFz2KxTCtW pic.twitter.com/maJunybDty

Still, eyebrows were raised when it first emerged that Pirelli was allowing Walker, whose reputation has been forged largely on his depictions of eerie romanticism and surrealist fairy-tale worlds in magazines like W, Vogue and Love, to tackle black identity for the calendar.

Would the unveiling of the calendar on Wednesday be seen as a commitment to diversity and positive social change? Or could the campaign spur accusations of corporate exploitation, as Pepsi discovered in April after widespread backlash to its protest-themed advertisement featuring the model Kendall Jenner, pulled after only a day, amid claims that it trivialised the Black Lives Matter movement?

Walker, holding a mug of tea after the shoot in May, was at pains to stress the artistic motivations behind his photographs, rather than underscore specific social messaging.

"As a photographer, you don't ever want to do what has been done before, so it was important for me to feel I was doing something completely different here," he said, adding that the decision to cast only black models had been "entirely my own. There were zero creative or commercial demands from Pirelli for this project. That is pretty rare in this business."

Carroll's original illustrations for the story, drawn for him by John Tenniel and full of the exaggerated sizing and dramatic flourishes typical of 19th-century British caricature, were the starting point for the creative team.

Enninful saw associations with the contemporary sculptural creations of Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto in the work. Shona Heath, the project's set designer, and her team created an overflowing wardrobe of new silhouettes for the calendar (even Heath's mother chipped in, making the Mad Hatter's hat). The cast was chosen by Piergiorgio Del Moro, including Alice herself: the South Sudanese-Australian model Duckie Thot, a newcomer, in towering platforms and cerulean blue thigh-high socks, with a starched silk minidress and a white lace pinafore.

"The outfit was made on me - we started with two costumes and eventually pinned them into a single look," said Thot, 21, who started modeling internationally less than a year ago. Asked how she felt about her starring role, she said, "I feel like I am living in my own fairy tale, and am proud to be part of something with such an important message about pride and self-expression."

Amid the boldface names, which include RuPaul as the Queen of Hearts, Goldberg (the Royal Duchess) and actress Lupita Nyong'o (the Dormouse), particularly striking is Thando Hopa. She is an albino lawyer and model, who plays the Princess of Hearts (a role specifically devised for her by Walker), and she is on a sabbatical after four years as a prosecutor specialising in sexual abuse cases in her native South Africa.

"When I was young, I didn't have a single role model who looked like me, who could have been a source of inspiration or motivation," Hopa said. "I wanted to expand other people's imaginations by not letting them be restricted to specific stories or narratives. Any girl, whether she is black, white, Asian or Indian, should be able to have a sense that they, too, can be a heroine in their own fairy tale. If Alice looks differently here, then Alice can be anybody. Your value comes from far more than the narrative that someone else gives you. I hope that when the calendar goes live, they are able to see the intention behind this, which is that it was a unifying effort."

The New York Times

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/pirelli-calendar-exclusively-features-people-of-colour-including-aussie-duckie-thot-20170720-gxflsz.html