Sixty years ago, the Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli released its first calendar as a trade gift. Shot by Robert Freeman, that initial publication started a movement, an annual showcase that would eventually include the work of renowned photographers like Annie Leibovitz and Peter Lindbergh starring the top models, actors, and celebrities of every era. The Cal—as it is now known—has gone through many transformations in the past six decades. In the ’80s, more sensual images were trendy; subjects, therefore, found themselves in little to no clothes. Nudity reigned in the Cal until around 2015, when the narrative began to shift beyond the display of naked women.
This was the history Ethan James Green grappled with when he was approached by Pirelli to shoot the 2024 calendar. Green was given the calendar’s 50-year retrospective anniversary book and the ten subsequent publications as he began considering the legacy he would leave on the Cal. “The book featured more sensual beach shoots,” Green tells W, explaining that the succeeding calendars strayed from that overt sexuality. “Right away, I knew I wanted to do sexy. I wanted to return to the original, to what we think of as Pirelli.”
So Green traveled to Virginia Key, off the coast of Miami, to shoot his 2024 calendar, “Refresh and Reveal.” He worked both on location and in-studio—a sort of homage to the artists who worked on Pirelli before him. “Looking back at the old calendars, my two favorites were [Richard] Avedon in-studio and Herb Ritts on a beach,” Green says. “Beach or studio, I couldn’t pick.”
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, we’re going to do nudes, so what am I doing here?’” stylist Tonne Goodman, who worked with James on the shoot, tells W with a laugh. Goodman dressed the cast and helped scavenge for natural materials on the beach that served as clothing in the images. When the crew arrived on location, they discovered driftwood, grounded dried palms, and tree branches that ended up on Simone Ashley, Jung Ho-yeon, and more.
While Green’s choice in aesthetic references the past, his casting lives in a modern era of the Cal. The photographer launched the casting process with a focus on those he’s worked with previously—specifically, the artist Martine Gutierrez, a close friend of his. Hunter Schafer, too, was an obvious choice. “I’ve worked with her in a lot of commercial and editorial spaces, but this was the first time I got to bring her into something more personal,” he says.
The group also includes men—not novel for the Cal, but still a pointed decision, especially considering the way they’re presented, “in such a direct, sexy way,” as Green puts it. Only three are featured as months, however: Actors Vincent Cassel and John Boyega, and Green himself are all featured.
“I wanted to make sure one of the guys stripped down to nothing because so many of the women did that,” Green, who is a former model, explains. “But we would never tell anyone, ‘You have to go naked.’ The only person I can say that to is myself. So my inclusion ensured that we had a guy willing to wear nothing.”
