Model Gigi Hadid, ballet dancer Misty Copeland, French actress and model Laetitia Casta and actress Julia Garner are the leading ladies featured in the 2019 Pirelli calendar.
The calendar, released each year by the Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli, this year focuses on the four women who are “playing a movie character role who are each on the road to achieving or have achieved their goals in life”.
Scottish lensman Albert Watson has photographed this year’s calendar, which was shot in mid-April over 10 days in Miami and New York.
The 76-year-old has sought to “narrate their journey, to understand the emotive power of their dreams, the turning points, the moments of victory and defeat, and how they faced each in turn”, a release said.
Each of the four women have been photographed with someone else who appears in the pictures as part of their narrative.
Hadid, 23, who plays the role of a wealthy individual, has been photographed alongside Chinese-American fashion designer Alexander Wang, who plays her confidant.
Her story portrays a “wealthy and successful woman, she appears to have it all but there is sadness amongst her life”.
Ballet star Copeland is photographed with fellow ballet star Calvin Royal III, and the pair play dancers.
Thirty-five year old Copeland was the first black woman to hold the position of principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre (ABT).
Her role for the calendar sees her playing a dancer who works in a downtown strip club, and dances to support herself and her boyfriend (played by Calvin Royal III).
Casta, who rose to fame as a Guess? model in the early 1990s, is photographed alongside ballet dancer Sergei Polunin.
Ukranian-born Polunin has been nicknamed the “bad boy” of the ballet world, following his shock decision to quit the Royal Ballet in 2012 after becoming its youngest principal.
Casta, 40, plays a painter who lives with her dancer boyfriend, played by Polunin.
Ozark actress Garner, 24, is photographed with Danish model Astrid Eika and the pair play the roles of a botanical photographer (Garner) and model (Eika).
Watson, who is named on the Vogue website as having had more than 100 photographs appear on the covers of the fashion bible around the world, has worked with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, singer David Bowie, model Kate Moss and the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The picture used on the cover of the 2011 Jobs biography and a picture he took of Moss on her 19th birthday are also among his well-known photographs.
The Edinburgh-born photographer gained notoriety for his 1973 black and white portrait of Hitchcock holding a dead goose by the neck.
The calendar, first produced in 1963, has toned down its content over the past few years.
In 2016 Annie Leibovitz featured clothed, high-achieving women, a notable break from the raunchier shots that had become associated with the product.
For more information visit
http://pirellicalendar.pirelli.com/