Why Buy Italian Tires?

For the Calendar, of course: A Look Back at 50 Years of the Pirelli Calendar

Of all the genius marketing schemes cooked up in the history of business, the Pirelli Calendar—arguably the world’s most titillating way of keeping track of time—is close to the top. The calendar, which was first launched in 1964, was initially simply promotional material for the Italian company’s tires, but the creative latitude extended to its contributors quickly piqued the interest of some of the world’s greatest photographers (Herb Ritts, Peter Beard, Nick Knight) and models (Catherine Deneuve, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss) who gamely partnered up for the project over the years, flying off to destinations like Brazil and Botswana with a lot of inspiration and very little in the way of clothes. “There is just something about that calendar,” says model Alessandra Ambrosio, who posed for both Patrick Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh for a special anniversary shoot in New York. . .

Italians are crazy drivers, and any tires that can keep the car on the Amalfi Coast road have to be pretty good.

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Linked at Proof Positive in the weekly "Best of the Web and Linkaround" and at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links post. Wombat-socho has the the long awaited, post tax day, triple stuffed  edition of "Rule 5 Sunday: Ricochet" up at The Other McCain.