Apple TV+‘s new docuseries The Super Models focuses on the 4 iconic ladies who outlined the supermodel period in trend: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. However, there’s a fifth well-known face of the time who is virtually completely minimize out of the narrative. German mannequin Tatjana Patitz rose to the high of the trend business alongside the 4 titular “Super Models.” She appeared alongside Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington in Peter Lindbergh’s well-known January 1990 British Vogue cover celebrating the ’90s lady. She joined them in Herb Ritts’s legendary stripped down nude shots celebrating femininity. Most pertinently, she was the fifth feminine tremendous mannequin George Michael referred to as upon to star in the David Fincher-directed music video for “Freedom! ’90.”
Tatjana Patitz was an enormous freaking deal, so why does she solely get a couple of passing references and a stark “In Memory Of” credit score at the finish of The Super Models Episode 2 “The Fame”?
Maybe extra pertinently, who was Tatjana Patitz, and what occurred to her in the years following her imperial interval as a brilliant mannequin?
Who was Tatjana Patitz, the Woman Honored at the End of The Super Models Episode 2?
Tatjana Patitz was one of the authentic so-called “supermodels” who dominated trend journal covers and conquered runways in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She was born in Hamburg, Germany to a German father and Estonian mom who met in a bodega in Spain. Patitz’s household ultimately settled down in Sweden.
In 1983, a seventeen-year-old Patitz was a finalist in Elite Models’ well-known Look competitors (which is featured in The Super Models). Patitz got here in third, which landed her a contract. After a couple of years of regular work, she landed her first British Vogue cowl and began working with Peter Lindbergh.
Similar to the trajectory of fellow supermodels Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington, Patitz parlayed her success in Europe to the pages of American Vogue. She quickly started forging relationships with the famous person photographers of the day, together with Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, and Herb Ritts. By 1990, she was becoming a member of Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington on each the iconic British Vogue cowl and in George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” video.
Patitz continued to work as a mannequin in the a long time that adopted till her premature loss of life in early 2023. Tatjana Patitz died of problems with breast most cancers on January 11, 2023 at the age of 56. She left behind husband Jason Randall Johnson and son Jonah.
Why Isn’t Tatjana Patitz One of the Primary Models Featured in The Super Models?
Although Tatjana Patitz had an unimaginable profession working alongside the likes of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington, she is not one prominently featured in Apple TV+’s The Super Models. It might merely be as a result of of the timing of the docuseries. After receiving her breast most cancers analysis, Patitz walked the catwalk for the final time in 2019. In October 2020, Apple TV+ introduced that it will be producing a docuseries about Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington. It could possibly be that Patitz merely didn’t need to take part.
It’s additionally unclear from the sequence if Patitz was ever as shut with Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington as the quartet was with one another. We study all through The Super Models that as an alternative of merely being work colleagues, these 4 supermodels have been basically sisters. Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington glommed onto one another as teenagers on one of their first main photoshoots. Evangelista later accomplished the “trinity. And Crawford spent tons of time profiling her three besties on MTV’s House of Style. Everyone speaks extremely of Patitz when she comes up, however there aren’t any private anecdotes proven and few, if any, candid pictures of them collectively outdoors of work.
Of course, it is also the indisputable fact that the most important 4 topics of The Super Models have been all thought of ever so barely extra profitable than Patitz of their heyday — emphasis on the phrase “barely.” Fashion impresarios like Grace Coddington categorized Patitz as on the similar degree as Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington, however she may not have had the similar degree of recognition as her tabloid headline-making friends.
All of which is to say Tatjana Patitz deserved extra from The Super Models. The indisputable fact that the present goes out of its manner to namecheck her in any respect proves she was a serious determine alongside Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington. It’s the indisputable fact that she’s talked about, however probably not remembered other than an RIP title card, that makes her absence really feel all the extra scandalous. You simply know there’s extra to the story than Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington are telling us…
: .