German model Tetiana Patitz, known for being part of a group of “original supermodels” of the 1980s and 1990s who starred in the music video for George Michael’s song Freedom, died on Wednesday at the age of 56, her agency said, confirming the news. from Vogue magazine, AFP notes.

“Tatiana passed away Sunday morning in California, where she lived,” Corinne Nicholas, founder and CEO of New York’s 5th Avenue The Model CoOp, told AFP in an email.

A representative of the family said that the cause of death was metastatic breast cancer, according to the New York fashion magazine Vogue, which made the information public.

The famous German fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh, who died in 2019, was always a favorite of Tatiana Patitz and photographed her since the 1980s. His foundation wrote on Twitter that it was “deeply saddened by the death of Tatiana Patits, a longtime friend of Peter.” and wanted to “bow before Tatiana’s kindness, inner beauty and incredible mind.”

German-born, Swedish-raised, California-based Tatiana Patitz has “always been the epitome of European chic, like Romy Schneider and Monica Vitti,” Vogue chief Anna Wintour told her magazine.

She was part of an elite group of “original supermodels” in the 1980s and 1990s, along with models Estelle Lefebvre, Karen Alexander, Rachel Williams, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. The six women are pictured in the famous photograph taken by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue on the beach in 1988 (“White Shirts: Six Supermodels, Malibu”).

Tatyana Patitz, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford also appear and sing along to George Michael in the famous video Freedom! “90” by the British composer who died in 2016.

Tatiana Patitz was “the calmest and perhaps the fiercest of the +original supermodels+,” Vogue wrote, echoing the model’s statement in a 2020 interview: “I never sold my soul.” (Source Agerpres)