New Delhi, Jan 18 After a long stint of 19 years, the Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar comes to an end. The calendar published annually by the United Breweries Group of India published the last edition in 2021.
Since 2003, it was one of the most prestigious calendars to be released from India and can be credited as being a launch pad for leading models and actresses. Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Yana Gupta, Sonali Raut, Ujjwala Raut, Nargis Fakhri, Bruna Abdullah, Deepti Gujral, Lisa Haydon and Angela Jonsson have all been featured on its pages.
The calendar has been shot in exotic destinations around the globe. The Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar 2021 was brought back to the home base and was shot during the pandemic in Kerala.
Ace photographer Atul Kasbekar has been the man behind the lens since its inception. He is the only celebrity photographer in Asia, who has associated with a calendar and the brand for so long. As the curtains come down on the calendar, life caught u with Kasbekar to look back at the making of the annual Calendar and an era of fashion and beauty.
Read Excerpts:
The Kingfisher calendar was the first luxury corporate calendar out of India, comparable to international calendars… what was the vision you started out with?
Kasbekar: I believe what happened with the calendar was that it began to act as a platform to showcase talent; we discovered that many people from the calendar rose to stardom, and if you were chosen for it, it almost put you in another orbit. The spotlight was on the talent that featured in it, and it things to a higher level.
Of course, whether it was Katrina Kaif, who was in the first edition, Deepika Padukone, Yana Gupta, Nargis Fakhri, Saibi Kher, and all the others, rose a few notches, it aided their careers greatly, in a manner of speaking, we had a very high ratio of talent spotting.
What was the idea behind the calendar?
Kasbekar: Two decades ago, to understand the context in which the Kingfisher calendar started, for me as a photographer, it was an opportunity to do something that involved me reporting to the client directly, which was a great relief given that, otherwise, you have to go through the agency route and a lot of layers in any kind of approval on real creativity.
So I had this idea for doing something which is a cross between Pirelli and Sports Illustrated
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