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Regifting: 3 Christmas Catalog covers

 

Banana Republic #17  Christmas 1984 American Tweed Sweater

This is an interesting catalog cover because it was actually done THREE different times. The 1984 Holiday cover is a color version of the 1982 cover drawing. What’s really interesting is that the cover was repainted entirely for the 1986 Holiday Update! The 86 version is not the exact same drawing, but it’s a copy that an artist made of that drawing. Kind of cool, you can play a “what’s different” game with the images. The cat is now napping, for instance. All three feature a cameo by Livingstone the Zebra. They also cater to the yuppie intellectual with nods to the New Yorker magazine and the Wall St. Journal. The WSJ shows up a lot in these catalogs. The go-go 80s, doncha know.

Banana Republic 1982 Gift Catalog by Patricia Ziegler

Banana Republic Catalog 21 Xmas 1984

Banana Republic Catalog Holiday Update 1986

 

About The Author

Robyn Adams
Robyn's fascination with Banana Republic began in 1984 when her Alaskan adventurer father began buying the clothing and giving her the catalogs. She loved the clothes and as an artist she was drawn to the illustrations. She went on to study illustration at art college in BR's hometown of San Francisco and worked for years as a background artist for animation. She is now based in Oakland, CA as a graphic designer and illustrator with Secret Fan Base . She's been collecting and archiving at Abandoned Republic since 2011.

3 Comments

  • Mike Ritter on March 18, 2012

    Thanks for posting these great images. Every time I go past the BR store in a mall I grumble because it just isn’t Banana Republic. Your website takes me back to those good ol’ days.

  • susanpub on May 12, 2013

    I second this.

  • Amirata on August 1, 2022

    Great post! I love the catalog cover art here. As a subscriber to The New Yorker, I thought it would be fun to try and find the actual magazine issues with the covers shown in these images, assuming the covers are based on actual magazine covers. I haven’t been able to find the cover featured here on the 86 catalog cover. But I found one New Yorker issue that resembles the cover from the 84 catalog, which came out October 8th, 1984. But the 82 catalog has a similar image, so I could be wrong. The covers could be inspirations too. If anyone knows, let me know!

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