Aditi Rao Hydari, Bhavitha Mandava, Padma Lakshmi Lead All-Indian Cast for Pirelli 2027

Following his passing, the project was completed by his daughter, Avani Rai, making it a deeply emotional collaboration with Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø, who was the lens behind last year’s shoot.

Featuring Indian-origin celebrities like television host Padma Lakshmi, actors Freida Pinto, Avantika Vandanapu and Aditi Rao Hydari, models Lakshmi Menon and Bhavitha Mandava, musician Anoushka Shankar, and poet Rupi Kaur to name a few, the calendar presents a powerful portrait of the country’s many identities.

Padma Lakshmi. (Source: Instagram/@indiaculturalhub)

According to the official website of Pirelli, the late photographer had been working on the project for several months when he died in April 2026, aged 83. Avani revealed that the project had “originally been intended as a studio shoot, but she chose instead to take it into the streets of Old Delhi, to places her father had photographed throughout his career, from Kinari Bazar to Yamuna Ghat”.

“He belonged to the streets, so I took the idea he was working on into the streets and to the people he had photographed all his life,” she told the publication. Instead of recreating his images, she simply selected images made by her father and returned to the places where they had been taken. Just placed them before the camera, then stepped back, photographing the original image together with the reality that surrounds it today.

Sundsbø’s lens also captured actors, models and artists alike at Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur and Ajabgarh, Village Alwar in Rajasthan.

Avantika Vandanapu. (Source: Instagram/@indiaculturalhub)

Now, first things first, why does any of this matter?

For those new to the world of fashion, Vogue reports that The Cal is an annual project published by Pirelli Calendar, an Italian tyre company, which went on to become one of the most celebrated cultural objects in the world of photography. Born in 1964, the first edition was shot by some of the most recognised photographers of that time. Till date, 52 calendars have been released by 41 photographers.

Pirelli’s murky history

However, the exclusive, limited edition calendar has a turbulent history — marred with tales of racial discrimination, objectification and sexualisation of women on its glossy pages, with thin, white women models often featuring in the nude. Back in the day, some would even draw its notorious resemblance with images from the Playboy magazine — only Pirelli’s artistic flourish setting it apart.

Bhavitha Mandava (Source: Instagram/@indiaculturalhub)

Which is probably why Mandava, who opened Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show in Paris last year, was hesitant about being a part of this shoot, worrying how it would fare against India’s more modest culture. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the past eroticism of the Pirelli Calendar and those associations. But I’m so glad—they actively made an effort to make me feel like I belonged,” she told The Guardian.

If you are curious about the calendar and wish to get your hands on it, we hate to be the bearer of bad news. But Wikipedia states that copies do not go on sale. And while only 20,000 of them are printed annually, they are distributed as corporate gifts to celebrities and select Pirelli customers.