Images via WWD
Give Karl Lagerfeld a collection of models and he’ll turn them into the gods and goddesses they deserve to be.
For the 2011 Pirelli calendar, the designer turned photographer elevated the idea of the iconic calendar into something so much more, by creating an entire year of images based around the concept of mythology. With the assistance of fifteen model muses including Elisa Sednaoui, Daria Werbowy, Erin Wasson, and Iris Strubegger, Karl transformed his Paris studio into the land of Greek and Roman gods, to show off the idea of timeless beauty and youth. “With such a concept and boys and girls like this, it was an easy job,” said Karl, personifying himself as “the visual version of [ancient Greek writer] Homer. I did with my camera what he did with his pen, although we understand that he probably didn’t use a pen.”
Regardless of the instrument - pen or camera - Karl’s successfully envisioned and executed new life for the anxiously awaited calendar. One of his latest model muses, Elisa, expressed the sentiment perfectly and succinctly by saying, “Pirelli is art, but with Karl it takes on a different level.”
Read on for the full cast of models and the deities they personified as well as more sneak previews of the calendar!
- Bianca Balti as a Bacchante
- Elisa Sednaoui as Flora, Echo
- Freja Beha Erichsen as Apollo, Pollux, Orpheus
- Isabeli Fontana as a Bacchante
- Magdalena Frackowiak as Athena, Estia
- Anja Rubik as Hermes, Terpsichore
- Abbey Lee Kershaw as Echo, Castor, Eurydice
- Lakshmi Menon as a Bacchante
- Heidi Mount as (Aurora, Amphitrite
- Erin Wasson as Ajax, a Bacchante
- Natasha Poly as Melpomene
- Daria Werbowy as Artemis, Penthesilea
- Iris Strubegger as Athena
- Lara Stone as Aphrodite
- Jeneil Williams as Hades
