Banana Republic Catalog #35, Spring 1988: The Traveler’s Eye

Here’s our first foray into the 1988 catalogs, the last year they were issued. The catalog is full of signs of change at Banana Republic. The masthead now says Travel Clothing Co. rather than Travel & Safari Clothing Co. There are lots of new clothes inside, and it feels like the emphasis is on new clothes for women.

How far they’ve come since the 1983 catalogs. Virtually every piece of clothing is a full color illustration, the old technique of a color wash under a black and white drawing almost fully lost.

I do like the layout with the rough edged pages showing against a worn journal cover. This issue, The Traveller’s Eye, purports to have a lot of sketches from Patricia’s travel journals, and indeed there are numerous little sketches noting interesting aspects of some local costume discovered on their travels.

Also prominent are the advertisements for Trips, the upcoming travel magazine from BR and the Ziegler’s latest brainchild.