The German model Tatjana Patitz, famous for being part of the group of “original supermodels” from the 80s and 90s who appear in a video by musician George Michael, died this Wednesday at the age of 56, her agency reported, confirming information from the magazine . fashion.
“Tatjana died this morning in California,” where she lived, Corinne Nicolas, founder and head of the modeling agency on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in New York, The Model CoOp, responded in an email.
She did not reveal the circumstances of this disappearance at age 56, according to the New York fashion magazine Vogue, which revealed the information.
Renowned German fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh, who died in 2019, had always been a favorite of Tatjana Patitz and had photographed her since the 1980s. His foundation said on Twitter that it was “deeply saddened by the passing of Tatjana Patitz, a friend Peter for a long time”. and he “(wanted) to bow down to Tatjana’s kindness, inner beauty, and incredible intelligence.”
“European symbol of elegance”
Born in Germany, raised in Sweden and based in California, Tatjana Patitz “has always been the European symbol of chic, like the meeting of Romy Schneider and Monica Vitti,” Anna Wintour, head of fashion.
She was part of the elite group of “original supermodels” of the 1980s and 1990s, along with models Estelle Lefébure, Karen Alexander, Rachel Williams, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. All six women appear in a famous photo taken on a beach in 1988 by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue (“White Shirts: Six Supermodels, Malibu”).
Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford also appear and lip-sing the voice of George Michael in the late British composer’s famous title music video “Freedom! ’90” in 2016.
Tatjana Patitz was “the quietest and perhaps the most intense of the ‘original supermodels,'” she says fashionechoing a statement by the model during a 2020 interview: “I never sold my soul.”
Source: BFM TV
