Rest in Peace Tatjana Patitz

“Beauty means being a good person and being there for others. In my opinion, beauty is not only about looks, but everything that makes up a person.”

An environmental crusader, lifelong horsewoman, lover of animals, and nature, Tatjana Patitz recently passed. Since the blossoming of her career in the late 1980s, The German born and Swedish raised Tatjana charted to the very top of the fashion world and alongside her sisterhood of supers or as the press would dub The Big Five (including Turlington, Crawford, Campbell, Evangelista, and Patitz herself) aided in the ushering of a new era of top model and a decade of truly unforgettable fashion.

In contrast to her contemporaries, Tatjana wasn’t much of a topic for headlines and rather reside in one of the meccas of fashion in New York, Tatjana chose to make her home in California among the nature and animals she deeply loved. Throughout her career, industry titans like Anna Wintour, Herb Ritts, and the late Peter Lindbergh, whom she had a long-standing working relationship with, admired Patitz mysterious disposition and reserved sophistication.

Whether as a model or in her personal life, Tatjana Patitz voiced her concerns for gender equality, ageism, the treatment of animals, and protecting the environment. Tatjana had a wonderful spirit full of love and she’ll be cherished as the mother, friend, advocate, and a model of humanity she represented to so many.

Read more at Vogue, NPR, and CNN