Pirelli Calendar 2025: A relic from another era in the #MeToo age?

Glamorous icon or anachronistic symbol? The famous Pirelli Calendar reveals images from its 2025 edition where women are nude.

Since its first publication in 1964, the renowned Pirelli Calendar has established itself as an essential event for fans of artistic photography and female beauty. But in 2024, as the world evolves under the influence of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, a burning question arises: why does society continue to celebrate a tradition that still reduces women to objects of desire, often nude, in a context where equality, respect, and changing mentalities are demanded?

The “superficial” modernization
Pirelli claims to have evolved its famous calendar. Gone is the gratuitous nudity, replaced with images supposedly celebrating women in all their complexity, sometimes including models outside traditional standards. A semantics that still seems to underestimate people’s intelligence. But behind this carefully calibrated communication, a persistent reality remains: the representation continues to focus on women’s bodies, often nude, exaggeratedly idealized, and subjected to a predominantly male gaze.

Even when renowned artists like Annie Leibovitz or Peter Lindbergh take the helm, the result, although visually stunning, still rests on erotic aesthetics that fuel a patriarchal imaginary. Pirelli doesn’t celebrate women for what they are, but for what they represent in collective imagination: silent muses frozen in their iconic role.

An anachronism in the #MeToo era
The calendar, once seen as cutting-edge art, now appears as a relic. In a world where women fight to break glass ceilings, secure fair wages, and free themselves from judgments based on their appearance, is it still relevant to produce annually a series of images that focus discourse on their physique?

The #MeToo movement has revealed how much objectification culture contributes to systemic inequalities. Yet, the calendar continues, as if the widespread denunciations of abuse of power and sexualization had never happened. Each new edition seems to disregard these social shifts, hiding behind the excuse of “artistic tradition.”

A marketing privilege disguised as art
Beyond its artistic claims, the Pirelli Calendar is a powerful communication tool. Distributed free to a select circle of clients and celebrities, it is a privilege reserved for an elite, which gains symbolic or even advertising benefits from it. Pirelli has cleverly positioned itself as a patron of art, but the calendar remains primarily a marketing operation designed to reinforce the brand’s luxury and seduction image.

This is not just about content, but also about the arrogance of a company that continues to exploit this strategy, as if contemporary grievances had no impact on its glamorous universe.

What if we turn the page?
The Pirelli Calendar stands at a crossroads. It could become a platform to promote female artists, diversify perspectives, and truly represent the plurality of human experiences, without reducing women to exposed bodies. But for that, a profound rethinking of its very purpose is required.

As companies worldwide are called to adopt more ethical and responsible practices, Pirelli has a golden opportunity to reinvent its calendar and prove that a brand can evolve with its time. Meanwhile, each new release continues to be a disturbing reminder of the gap between progressive rhetoric and commercial realities.

In an era marked by powerful feminist movements and a collective awareness of inequalities, the Pirelli Calendar embodies the worst of frozen traditions. Clinging to this dusty relic means ignoring the aspirations of women worldwide. So, Pirelli, when will the revolution happen?

ALSO READ: The future Mercedes CLA sets a 24-hour distance record