NEW DELHI, October 23, 2026 — The 2027 Pirelli Calendar, starring India, was unveiled today in New Delhi. To portray this land shaped by ancient traditions yet constantly moving toward the future, the Pirelli Calendar—now in its 53rd edition—has, for the first time in its history, brought together three photographers, each gazing upon the same country through a distinct lens.
Sølve Sundsbø, who shot the 2026 edition, meets here the vision of Indian photography master Raghu Rai—who passed away in April 2026, with his daughter Avani Rai carrying forward her father's legacy and continuing the project after his death. What ultimately emerges is a dialogue about people and land, beauty and memory, past and present.
"Close your eyes and imagine India. What do you see? Perhaps a splash of color, a face, a bustling street, a landscape, a ritual. Yet India has never been one-dimensional. In this land, different eras, traditions and realities coexist, and the ancient and the contemporary step into the same frame," says Sølve Sundsbø. "I know I cannot fully capture India's complexity, nor do I have the right to do so. I left the mission of exploring the depths of this country's soul to Raghu and Avani Rai. I chose instead to focus on the faces of extraordinary Indian women, moving between the textures, colors and chiaroscuro of their garments."
Since 1965, Raghu Rai has turned his lens on India, documenting the country's street life and everyday humanity for more than sixty years. For the 2027 Pirelli Calendar, he chose to draw from his own archive, interweaving old works with contemporary Indian faces. Rai remained devoted to the project until his passing in April 2026; afterward, his daughter Avani chose to continue her father's unfinished work in her own way. She took photographs from Raghu's archive—both published and unpublished—out of the studio and back onto the streets of Delhi and Mumbai, placing them alongside the realities lived today by the people in his images. Thus people, architecture, movement, light and ritual enter the frame, and the city itself becomes a living presence within the images. "My father belonged to the street. That is why I brought his ideas back to the street, back among the people he photographed all his life," says Avani. "In heart and in step, I took a step back. I stand right behind him," she explains. Avani selected photographs Raghu took years ago and returned to some of the original locations, standing at a different vantage point from her father's, framing the images from Raghu's lens together with the real scenes surrounding her today.
The original photographs remain intact yet become part of a larger composition—different eras and realities converging and coexisting within it. "The past will always exist in the present," says Avani. "It is everywhere, hidden in every tiny detail."
Sundsbø photographed nine women with deep ties to India in Jaipur, Rajasthan, between Jaigarh Fort and Ajabgarh. "For me, the heart of the calendar is people," he says. "We wanted to present diverse figures: among them poets, musicians, architects, models and actors." The lineup includes actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Avantika Vandanapu; actor and producer Freida Pinto; musician and composer Anoushka Shankar; poet and performer Rupi Kaur; models Lakshmi Menon and Bhavitha Mandava; writer, producer and television host Padma Lakshmi; and Avani Rai herself—appearing both behind the camera and before Sundsbø's lens.
Avani's lens wanders through the everyday vitality of Old Delhi's streets: flower markets, crowded alleyways and schools where tradition endures; then the lens turns to Mumbai's more contemporary face, where fashion and the film industry intersect. The city is defined both by its metropolitan skyline and by the places young people frequent, from rooftop skyscrapers all the way to fishing villages. For this shoot, Avani Rai invited approximately 130 people into the frame, including ordinary citizens, young people, dancers, performers, models, artisans, her own mother, and Indian superstar Ranveer Singh. She brought the life still unfolding around her father's old photographs into the present moment.
The 2027 Pirelli Calendar was shot between May and September 2026 and is presented in a boxed format containing two separate slipcases, with a total of 36 photographs: 18 shot by Sølve Sundsbø and 18 by Raghu and Avani Rai.
