The annual Pirelli calendar is always a marker for where the fashion industry is going, so the 2017 one – an all-black reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, shot by Tim Walker – is an incredible moment of representation.
It also stars Sudanese-Australian model Duckie Thot as the titular Alice, and can we all just pause a second to note how un-fucken-believable she looked at the launch party in this J’Aton Couture dress? I’m dead.
Thot told The Cut that being in the calendar was so important because representation wasn’t something she found in Australia.
“I didn’t have peers who looked like me. It means so much to me because I know it’s going to impact some girl’s life in a way that I wish I had when I was younger. I knew there was something missing when I was growing up, but I didn’t know what it was. To be able to have shot this and be Alice is so important to me.”
The 22-year-old model – who you might remember from cycle eight of Australia’s Next Top Model – was also recently cast for Rihanna‘s Fenty Beauty campaign, and appeared on the cover of Paper Magazine.
Everyone else involved is like some perfect fever dream of casting: RuPaul as the Queen of Hearts, Naomi Campbell and Diddy as the Queen‘s Beheaders, Whoopi Goldberg as The Royal Duchess, Lupita Nyong’o as The Dormouse, Aussie model Adut Akech as The Queen of Diamonds, Djimon Hounsou as The King of Hearts, Thando Hopa as The Princess of Hearts, Slick Woods as The Mad Hatter, Sasha Lane as The Mad March Hare, Lil Yacthy as The Queen’s Guard, and women’s rights activist Jaha Dukureh as a Wonderland Princess.
The shoot was styled by new British Vogue Editor Edward Enninful, who made waves in the fashion world only last week for his triumphant first cover.
“To see a black Alice today means children of all races can embrace the idea of diversity from a very young age and also acknowledge that beauty comes in all colours,” he told (where else?) Vogue.
The Pirelli calendar was launched on Friday night in New York City at a glitzy event emceed by The View‘s Joy Behar.
At the event, Diddy praised the calendar as not “just about an all-black cast” but “the complexity of our beauty and magic was put on full blast, finally.”
