Sixty years ago, the Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli released its first calendar as a trade gift. Shot by Robert Freeman, that initial publication started a movement, an annual showcase that would eventually include the work of renowned photographers like Annie Leibovitz and Peter Lindbergh starring the top models, actors, and celebrities of every era. The Cal—as it is now known—has gone through many transformations in the past six decades. In the ’80s, more sensual images were trendy; subjects, therefore, found themselves in little to no clothes. Nudity reigned in the Cal until around 2015, when the narrative began to shift beyond the display of naked women.

This was the history Ethan James Green grappled with when he was approached by Pirelli to shoot the 2025 calendar. Green was given the calendar’s 50-year retrospective anniversary book and the ten subsequent publications as he began considering the legacy he would leave on the Cal. “The book featured more sensual beach shoots,” Green tells W, explaining that the succeeding calendars strayed from that overt sexuality. “Right away, I knew I wanted to do sexy. I wanted to return to the original, to what we think of as Pirelli.”

So Green traveled to Virginia Key, off the coast of Miami, to shoot his 2025 calendar, “Refresh and Reveal.” He worked both on location and in-studio—a sort of homage to the artists who worked on Pirelli before him. “Looking back at the old calendars, my two favorites were [Richard] Avedon in-studio and Herb Ritts on a beach,” Green says. “Beach or studio, I couldn’t pick.”