Julia Garner is among the big-name stars who appears in the new Pirelli calendar.

Julia Garner

Julia Garner

The 2019 edition of the iconic calendar features striking images of the 24-year-old actress, as well as the likes of Gigi Hadid, ballerina Misty Copeland and French actress Laetitia Casta, all of whom were shot by Scottish photographer Albert Watson.

Speaking about the calendar, Albert said: "When I approached this project, I wanted to do it in a way that was different from other photographers."

Albert wanted to create something "more interesting" than models "taking their tops off" and decided to take a cinematic approach to the images.

The photographer said he hoped to explore femininity in the post-MeToo era.

He explained: "I wanted to create something that was more than just a portrait of somebody - I wanted it to look like a film still. [With the Pirelli calendar] in the past, the idea was always to do an elegant sophisticated version of a pin up.

"But as that had been done dozens of times in the past, it didn't seem the right thing to take a bunch of supermodels down to the beach to take their tops off.

"It didn't seem to be the right thing to do that. And therefore I thought it was more interesting to do a cinema approach, to do four short films that the stills came from."

The calendar was officially launched at a gala at HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday (05.12.18), and Gigi was among the star-studded list of attendees.

Albert wanted to create an elegant set of pictures and Julia admitted that being photographed for the calendar was a welcome change from her role as Ruth Langmore in the drama series 'Ozark'.

She said: "In 'Ozark', I look at myself and I think: 'Ohhh I look terrible.' I make myself look terrible [in the show]. These [pictures] are all beautiful.

"And it is weird to say: 'These are all beautiful images' when they are of me. But Albert has a vision."