Tatjana Patitz was a force in fashion, gracing runway shows and magazine covers, adorned in pieces from some of the most famed design houses.
The model, recognized as one of the original “Supers,” died on Wednesday at 56 years old of breast cancer in a hospice center in Santa Barbara, California. Patitz will be remembered for her gracious style and iconic photos, but also for her role in George Michael’s 1990 “Freedom! 90” music video, which has experienced a surge in Google search interest following her death.
Patitz was featured in the late pop star‘s music video alongside other famed supermodels of the time, including Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington Burns and Naomi Campbell, who were all at the height of their careers.
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In the high-tempo video, Patitz can be seen in a dimly lit hallway, leaning on a wall wearing a graphic sweater with her signature short blond haircut. She’s lip-singing Michael’s coming-of-age song, with bright lights that gave her an angelic look, save for a lit cigarette in her hand.
Casual smoking was actually a frequent hobby of the late supermodel, which Turlington Burns affectionately recalled in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
“Tatjana was always a vision. Glamorous, sophisticated, and warm, once she let you in,” Turlington Burns wrote in an Instagram post. “I could have watched her smoke cigarettes and speak in any of the many languages she was fluent in all day. Who needed to work? I was learning how an international woman behaved and moved in the world in real time.”
The project was engrained in pop culture as an iconic moment of the ’90s supermodels. Now, the video has more than 120 million views on YouTube.
In a retrospective Q&A with the cast on the making of the music video, the supermodels reflected fondly on the groundbreaking project.
“George pitched it to me in a nightclub called Roxbury’s and his exact words were: ‘You’re the leader of the gang and unless you say yes, the other girls won’t,” Campbell said of the concept’s genesis. “Through headlines and things, we understood that George wasn’t going to be in the video at all,” she added.
Patitz, too, knew little about their elevated presence in the video that would outshine the pop star.
“I didn’t know what exactly they had planned,” Patitz recalled. “They sent us the song and said we would be lip-singing. I had to lean against a leaky, dribbly wall with water coming down.”
The glamour was lacking all around. Crawford said she “didn’t have any hair and makeup,” but instead “a bunch of grease” all over her body while in a bathtub.
Evangelista, who had a generous amount of screen time in the video, revealed that she had little time to learn the lyrics before filming. “I just had to hit the mark,” she said, recalling a series of director’s David Fincher’s instructions. “’I said, ‘oh my god, let’s just have fun.’ And that’s when it ended up being fun.”
Letting the models take the lead proved to be a successful bet that catapulted Patitz and her peers beyond the runway and glossy magazine pages. “There’s a delicious sort of arrogance to this video,” James Corden said in the interview, appearing for a short cameo to give his opinion on the impact of the music video. “To go, ‘ah, I’m not going to be in this video. I’m just going to fill it with the most beautiful women in the world.'”
The unexpected format influenced the entire industry, Elton John recalled. “It changed the whole face of how videos were done. George did no promotion and this was 1990, he’s following up a huge record with ‘Faith’ and this was a hugely anticipated record.”
Last year, Turlington Burns spoke to WWD about the iconic music video, mentioning that the group of models didn’t know the impact of the moment initially. The same group of models closed out the Versace 1991 show lip-synching to the song.
“All of these things weren’t a week later. They were a season later. It wasn’t as though in the moment we realized that it was an iconic moment,” Turlington Burns said to WWD.
Patitz’s costars took to social media to pay their respects, including Crawford.
“So sad to hear of the passing of the beautiful @tatjanapatitz,” Crawford captioned a photo on Instagram. “We were babies together in the fashion industry and I feel like we grew up together. We were in so many shoots together and backstage at shows. I found her soft-spoken, sensitive, kind, inquisitive and, who could ever forget those piercing eyes.”
Campbell added, “Tatiana Patitz @tatjanapatitz earth angel, kind, generous, shy, lover of animals sometimes more than people. When I met you at 16 at the Alaia show, I remember just saying ‘wow!’ Your presence and stature. Your eyes and nervous shy smile, goddess energy that we were all drawn to… My first time in LA I got to experience it with you, showing me the sites and beaches, driving around in your red Volkswagen convertible. Blaring the Sign of the Times… It was that trip where you introduced me to Herb Ritts, who called you Tatski. I’ll forever be grateful and cherish the beautiful memories.”
Turlington Burns shared: “I learned about the sudden passing of Tatjana Patitz when I landed at an airport on the same coast earlier today. Ever since, all I can see is her face, hear her voice, and of course am flooded with memories. Tatjana embodied, to me, European sophistication and style when I met her.”