Check out the size of her wits

01 December 2015 - 02:05 By Hannah Furness, ©The Telegraph

Once a fixture in schoolboys' bedrooms because of its raunchy nudes, the latest Pirelli calendar is adopting a new theme: feminism. The 2016 calendar is to feature "women of achievement" for the first time, as it swaps raunchy nudes for real activists, campaigners, plus-size comedians and octogenarians.Shot by Annie Leibovitz, it will star Yoko Ono, Patti Smith and Serena Williams in a calendar intended to showcase talent over looks. Most of the women will be fully clothed, with only comedian Amy Schumer appearing in the flesh as part of a knowing in-joke that she "didn't get this year's memo".The calendar will also include Natalia Vodianova , the founder of charity Naked Heart Russia; Yao Chen, the first Chinese UN High Commissioner for Refugees goodwill ambassador, and Agnes Gund, the art collector and patron.Other women include Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments; Kathleen Kennedy, chair of Lucasfilm, and blogger Tavi Gevinson.Fran Lebowitz, writer and calendar model, joked: "Women with their clothes on are having a moment."Annie Leibovitz, who also shot the 2000 Pirelli calendar, told a press conference she had minimised the level of digital enhancement of the photographs, adding that the calendar represented a "shift" in the way women were viewed in the world.She said: "The goal was to be very straightforward. I wanted the pictures to show the women as they are, with no pretence."Speaking of the December image, which shows Schumer drinking coffee in her knickers, she said: "The Amy Schumer portrait added some fun."The clothed models are a return to the earliest Pirelli calendars of the 1960s, with a handful of years - 2002, 2008 and 2013 - also having no nudes.This year, only Schumer and Williams will appear semi-nude. Leibovitz called her shots of Williams "body studies", in homage to the physical power of her figure. Yoko Ono, the 83-year-old artist, will wear a corset and top hat, while others appear in their ordinary clothes. ..

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