Calendars - Part 30

Bien Charpenté

The Bien Charpenté calendar is put out by Charpente Cénomane, a French carpentry and construction company in the town of Requeil in northwestern France.  Company co-founder Jean-Claude Baudin had looked at a nude rugby calendar (probably Dieux du Stade) but found it a little too polished.  That's when he got the idea for a nude calendar featuring his employees.  Bien charpenté means "well built," and apparently the phrase is a double-entendre in French as well as in English.

For the first several years, the calendar was shot in different cities around Europe.  The 2010 calendar was shot in Paris on June 7, 2009.  Barack Obama was visiting Paris, which allowed the calendar models to quickly strip and get photographed at famous places around Paris without getting hassled by police.  Because of Obama's visit, Baudin said, the police had other fish to fry.

Above, some brief excerpts from a promotional video showing the making of the 2010 calendar.  The actual nudity was very short, so I slowed it down for an instant replay.

The calendar models are all company employees, including both company co-founders.  Here they are in front of the Brussels town hall for the 2013 calendar.  

Here they are in Barcelona for the 2014 calendar, with the Sagrada Familia cathedral in the background.

The 2015 calendar was shot in the French Alps.  This is production manager and co-founder Patrick Jouenne.

This is quality manager Vincent Sechet.

This is carpenter Alexander Daguet.

The town of Requeil, where the company is located, is near Le Mans, site of the famous sports car race.  The 2019 calendar was shot at Le Mans while the race was actually going on with 135,000 spectators. 

This is carpenter Flavien and works manager Mathieu.

This is site manager Vincent.

This is site manager Mathieu.

We end with a teaser video for the 2019 calendar.  Even if you can't read French, you'll appreciate the scenes of the carpenters getting naked for the calendar on the grounds of Le Mans while the race was going on.

Evidently the calendar makers have a sense of humor.  In the official-looking credits at the end of this video, it lists the credit for music as "iTunes" and the credit for costumes as a blank (because, of course, costumes are conspicuously missing).  They also credit iMovie, the same Macintosh software that I use to edit videos.