Haute 100 MIA: Serena Williams to Be Featured in Provocative Pirelli Calendar

In an announcement made via Twitter, Serena Williams will be featured in the Pirelli, an Italian sports car tire company, calendar.

Each year the Italian company features provocative, but tasteful, portraits of the hautest supermodels in its annual calendar “Cal.” However, for the 2016 edition, the company has tapped the tennis superstar and fashion designer. The 2016 calendar, which was shot in July by world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, will be reveled in its entirety in November.

Most recently, Williams dominated fashion week. The 33-year-old debuted her new signature collection with Her Holiness Anna Wintour seated in the very front row, along with her rumored boyfriend rapper Drake. The collection features a variety of nude colors as well as a lot of fringe and suede.

In an interview with USA Today, the tennis athlete said, “This collection is amazing. We really experimented with a lot of neutral colors. If you think about me I have a lot of pop (she wore bright tangerine and pink during her semifinal match). I want to experiment with (neutral colors), give a woman something she can really wear in her wardrobe, and be really fabulous with it.”

With Williams success in the fashion realm, it’s no surprise Pirelli has tapped the tennis star to be part of the project.

Since the calendar’s inception in 1964, Pirelli executives have made the brand’s calendar one of the most sought-after calendars in the world. It has featured the likes of Alessandra Ambrosio, Gisele Bündchen, Naomi Campbell, Laetitia Casta, Cindy Crawford, Penélope Cruz, Milla Jovovich, Heidi Klum, Angela Lindvall, Sophia Loren, Kate Moss, to name a few.

Earlier this summer, Pirelli celebrated its 50^th anniversary of the notoriously exclusive Pirelli Calendar. The company released a retrospective volume reproducing the complete calendars, photographed by Richard Avedon, Peter Beard, Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight, Karl Lagerfeld, Inez van lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Annie Leibovitz and many more.

In addition, the retrospective volume features never-before-seen behind-the-scenes images of the shoots, the unpublished 1963 calendar, and a selection of “censored” images deemed too risqué by the editors of the time.

Photo via Instagram