Who is Tatjana Patitz? Why ‘The Super Models’ Episode 2 Is Dedicated to the Memory of the Late Model 

Apple TV+‘s new docuseries The Super Models focuses on the four iconic women who defined the supermodel era in fashion: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. However, there’s a fifth famous face of the time who is almost entirely cut out of the narrative. German model Tatjana Patitz rose to the top of the fashion industry alongside the four titular “Super Models.” She appeared alongside Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington in Peter Lindbergh’s famous January 1990 British Vogue cover celebrating the ’90s woman. She joined them in Herb Ritts’s legendary stripped down nude shots celebrating femininity. Most pertinently, she was the fifth female super model George Michael called upon to star in the David Fincher-directed music video for “Freedom! ’90.”

Tatjana Patitz was a big freaking deal, so why does she only get a few passing references and a stark “In Memory Of” credit at the end of The Super Models Episode 2 “The Fame”?

Maybe more pertinently, who was Tatjana Patitz, and what happened to her in the years following her imperial period as a super model?

Who was Tatjana Patitz, the Woman Honored at the End of The Super Models Episode 2?

Tatjana Patitz was one of the original so-called “supermodels” who dominated fashion magazine covers and conquered runways in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She was born in Hamburg, Germany to a German father and Estonian mother who met in a bodega in Spain. Patitz’s family eventually settled down in Sweden.

In 1983, a seventeen-year-old Patitz was a finalist in Elite Models’ famous Look competition (which is featured in The Super Models). Patitz came in third, which landed her a contract. After a few years of steady work, she landed her first British Vogue cover and started 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 soon began forging relationships with the superstar photographers of the day, including Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, and Herb Ritts. By 1990, she was joining Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington on both the iconic British Vogue cover and in George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” video.

Patitz continued to work as a model in the decades that followed until her untimely death in early 2023. Tatjana Patitz died of complications with breast cancer 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 incredible career 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 could simply be because of the timing of the docuseries. After receiving her breast cancer diagnosis, Patitz walked the catwalk for the last time in 2019. In October 2020, Apple TV+ announced that it would be producing a docuseries about Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington. It could be that Patitz simply didn’t want to participate.

It’s also unclear from the series if Patitz was ever as close with Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington as the quartet was with each other. We learn throughout The Super Models that instead of merely being work colleagues, these four supermodels were essentially sisters. Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington glommed onto each other as teens on one of their first major photoshoots. Evangelista later completed the “trinity. And Crawford spent tons of time profiling her three besties on MTV’s House of Style. Everyone speaks highly of Patitz when she comes up, but there are no personal anecdotes shown and few, if any, candid shots of them together outside of work.

Of course, it could also be the fact that the main four subjects of The Super Models were all considered ever so slightly more successful than Patitz in their heyday — emphasis on the word “slightly.” Fashion impresarios like Grace Coddington categorized Patitz as on the same level as Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington, but she might not have had the same level of recognition as her tabloid headline-making peers.

All of which is to say Tatjana Patitz deserved more from The Super Models. The fact that the show goes out of its way to namecheck her at all proves she was a major figure alongside Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington. It’s the fact that she’s mentioned, but not really remembered apart from an RIP title card, that makes her absence feel all the more scandalous. You just know there’s more to the story than Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista, and Turlington are telling us…