Gigi Hadid to appear in Pirelli 2019 calendar shot by Albert Watson

Pirelli has announced the cast and concept behind their 2019 calendar, photographed by Albert Watson.

Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta and Julia Garner star as "women who are playing a movie character role".

It is British-born photographer and Vogue regular Albert Watson's first time shooting the calendar.

The tyre company's calendar is known for its exclusivity and is given as a gift to customers and celebrities.

Albert Watson, who was born in Scotland in 1942, has created many iconic shoots and famously took portraits of Steve Jobs and Alfred Hitchcock.

His photographs have appeared in many iconic publications, including Harper's Bazaar, Time and Rolling Stone.

Watson has also shot for big fashion and beauty brands including Prada, Levi's, Revlon and Chanel.

His Pirelli shoots took place over 10 days in April in Miami and New York.

The calendar became an annual publication in 1963 but was discontinued in 1974.

It was resurrected 10 years later and has been published every year since.

This year's theme sees movie characters "on the road to achieving" or having "already achieved their goals in life".

Misty Copeland and Calvin Royal III appear as dancers and lovers, with Copeland also playing a dancer in a strip club.

Laetitia Casta acts as a painter who lives with her boyfriend, played by the dancer Sergei Polunin.

Actress Julia Garner, playing a botanical garden photographer who aspires to shoot portraits, is joined by model Astrid Eika.

Hadid plays a successful woman alongside her friend, the designer Alexander Wang. The two were shot in a flat in New York.

The 2018 calendar was styled by Vogue editor Edward Enninful and based on Alice in Wonderland.

Speaking to the BBC last year, former fashion editor Caryn Franklin said the calendar was "a high-status platform for photographers of note to be given the space to promote their own aesthetic".

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