The Bombay Shirt was available for a long time, from 1982-1988 in the catalogs that I know of. The distinctive light cotton shirt sports no less than FIVE pockets with buttons: One on each sleeve and three on the chest, with epaulettes on the shoulders and tabs on the sleeve for holding up the rolled […]
Part of the Fall 1985 Australian Outback catalogue which included Australian football jerseys, Outback clothing and boomerangs, this Dinkum Aussie Football blanket is rare to see. Check out the April 2020 eBay auction.
The “Franco Pants” are one of the more memorable pieces of surplus for Banana Republic, first listed in 1983 and resurrected in 1985. The story told in the text is that the pants were designed by the Spanish dictator himself and the distinctive bullseye pattern stitched into the rear end was there so he could […]
This is a nice piece of authentic military surplus that was not featured in the catalog, presumably due to more limited quantities. A beautiful wool with silk lining women’s uniform jacket from the RCAC-Royal Canadian Army Cadets, a youth ROTC-type program of the Canadian Army. Complete with price tag and “Discovered By Banana Republic” tag, […]
Sold in the 1984 catalogs, these posters showcasing catalogue covers are really wonderful collectibles that appear now and then on eBay. Advertised were catalogs 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, but I also came across one from catalog #22, presumably sold in stores. My copy of the African Safari poster was signed by Patrica […]
Always one of the most affordable and popular items in the catalog, it was easy to throw one in with any order. The style (as evidenced by eBay listings) is classic “Henley” but they called it “The Banana Republic shirt” at the time. It was simply their Yukon Shirt in off-white with a logo on […]
This 1980 Fall/Winter catalogue features the first cover with a classic product still life scene. Patricia Gwilliam Ziegler spent a lot of time on this wonderful drawing of an African cabin filled with luggage and clothing, his and hers safari jackets hung upon the door and Mel’s typewriter in the corner next to a camera […]
I first saw this piece in an in-store framed picture and assumed it was a catalog cover like the other framed pictures in my collection. When I finally got to see the whole piece it was revealed that all of the product was only available in the Mill Valley or Polk Street stores and not […]
Banana Republic stores were each lavishly decorated with authentic vintage items as well as custom made items that reflected colonial safari and travel themes. Each store famously had a surplus Army Willy Jeep in the window, and often large museum quality animals such as elephants. The shoplifting detectors were disguised in large tusks framing the […]
Such a classic look from BR, this women’s Touring Jacket paired with a matching long skirt, the fabulous money belt and the famous Traveling Boots. The jacket differs from the classic safari jacket in the lack of breast pockets and a more tailored, elegant look. A khaki twist on the Amelia Earhart style. From the […]
This weekend I picked up an incredible collection from a follower of the blog. I believe I have a near complete run of Banana Republic catalogs, which is quite hard to accomplish! Catalogs 1-16 are just astonishingly rare, and some of these I have never seen before, others I had images for but no way […]
A very nice article was published in March 2018 on Seamwork by Betsey Blodgett. It includes a few photos from the eras of Mel and Patricia that we haven’t seen before. Particularly the photo of the store with an airplane in it! Check it out!
“A portable outside pocket that lets you keep passport, currency, traveler’s checks, credit cards, and tickets on your person. Side and bottom gussets, so you can easily add a souvenir.” The leather and linen look was so popular and with good reason. These Italian crafted bags are both stylish and utilitarian. The slim design of […]
From Holiday 1986, the Ex-Hunting bag is a generous leather purse made in Italy, inspired a hunting bag found in Milan. Thanks to blog reader Lauren for sharing hers with us!
Sporting eleven pockets in high quality Egyptian cotton this sport coat was designed to look good under any circumstances and carry just about everything you’d need to overthrow a small country. Current Ebay Auction
This attractive and practical english leather wallet and keychain belt is so perfectly Banana Republic Travel and Safari I’m surprised it wasn’t a staple of the catalogs for years. Instead this was only seen Summer 1986, Fall and Holiday, and Spring 1987. From the catalogue: “A liberating alternative to the cumbersome handbag-cum-wallet system: and inch-wide […]
My favorite things to collect are actual pieces from Banana Republic stores. The most interesting piece I have literally opens the door to my collection. These tusk shaped door handles were taken from a BR store when they transitioned away from the safari theme. I attached them to an Ikea display cabinet that houses my catalogs, artwork […]
This remarkable photo was sent in by designer Louisa Voisine, who organized fashion shows in the mid-80s to promote BR to the entertainment industry at the Beverly Hills store, creating the BR Studio Services Department. The late model John Allen McClatchey III is posed with a Gamekeeper’s Bag. The Gamekeeper’s Bag is a jute mesh […]
“Hi Abandoned Republic! I’ve the day off so wanted to get these treasures to you ASAP. They sort of tell a story of a starving artist (me) negotiating the perilous deep waters of the business world in the big city of San Francisco during the early 80s. “ –Kevin From the archives of staff artist Kevin Sarkki we […]
Kevin Sarkki emailed me out of the blue and said he’d found some exciting stuff in his archives for us. I told him I squealed when I saw the photos of the Zieglers in their offices at Banana Republic. The photos are everything you’d want to see. Mel is in full regalia in command at […]
The 1987 Holiday Catalog (No. 34) and it’s update was the last holiday catalog Banana Republic did. The cover illustration by Rob Stein (at this point a freelancer for BR) is a marvelous Trompe-l’œil painting of the “Giftbook” with a handwritten shopping list and a pencil refracted through the shopper’s eyeglasses.
Possibly the best of the Christmas covers, this amazing illustration by renowned Bay Area painter Chester Arnold captures the spirit of BR adventure and the joy of Christmas giving. A sleigh loaded with the colorful new BR gift boxes has just departed the BR North Pole Expedition camp and Santa has traded in his red and […]
All aboard the Christmas train. This cover by Kevin Sarkki adds to the BR vehicle fleet. We’ve got Jeeps, Bi-planes, and now a Kenyan steam train festooned with Christmas decorations. Awesome. This is the last of the monotone catalogs. #17 would bring the full color treatment to the BR catalog as the new infusion of Gap […]
This is a rare treat. Mike Madrid generously sent me a copy of this catalog for the archive. I knew it would be duotone printed on newsprint paper, but I was really surprised that it was not trimmed like a standard BR catalog; it’s a printer’s sample that hadn’t been cut yet! This is an […]
Fall 1988 was the last season for the Banana Republic catalog, and the update to Catalog #38 would be the last Banana Republic catalog published. This is also the first catalog ever published with no mention of the founders of the company. Mel and Patricia Ziegler had resigned in the spring of 1988, this catalog […]
After hiking the Inca Trail in Fall 1986 we hit the Road to Mandalay for Fall 1987’s Catalog No. 33. This striking cover was done by BR staff artist An-Ching Chang. The travelogue from Mel and Patricia’s journey to Burma is a great read and reminds me of the Soviet Safari as they navigate past […]
Catalog 29, the Fall 1986 Catalog takes us On the Inca Trail with Mel and Patricia Ziegler. From start to finish, this a is a fantastic BR catalog, one of my personal favorites. The cover is a classic, tightly rendered and harmonious in color and composition. The cover artists in uncredited, sadly, but our money […]
G’Day, mates, let’s get started on Catalog #25, Fall 1985’s “Notes from the Outback”….The cover artist is uncredited. Rob Stein is always a good guess, but this watercolor feels different to me. Hard to say. It’s a great piece and it almost looks like concept art for a store window display. Is there no location […]
Mel and Patricia Ziegler did a Wild Company book signing at Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building last night and I was in attendance in full BR regalia along with my very supportive friend Julie who insisted I say hello before their talk. I must admit I was a little nervous to introduce myself. […]
These original BR product illustrations were provided by Production Artist Mike Madrid. The black and white images would be duplicated as photostats which would then be hand tinted for the catalog.
Page 2 and 3 of the Fall 83 catalog. The introduction is word for word the same as the message from the founders in later catalogs. The company has 4 stores now (there would be 95 in 5 years). These rare monotone catalogs are filled with items not seen in the more common catalogs, such […]
Here we come to the end of the Summer catalogs from Banana Republic, 1988’s No. 36. The catalog introduces Trips, the new travel magazine created by the Zieglers as a bold expansion of the Banana Republic world view. As was reported in this March 1988 article in the LA Times, the new venture was both a vehicle […]
We are now working our way through the Summer 1987 Catalog “Expatriates”. One of BR’s most memorable covers, this tightly rendered, delightful illustration by H. Craig Hannah, a Bay Area illustrator and a graduate of CCAC in Oakland. Many of the figures are instantly recognizable–Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Pable Picasso and Josephine Baker. Livingstone the […]
“Voices From Africa” presents Banana Republic at it’s height, in my opinion. The company is robustly expanding and catching on across the country and the world, and the artwork and product are top notch, but still funky and authentic. This catalog so perfectly sells you on the heart of the BR concept, exotic wanderlust, counterculture […]
There were TWO updates to the Summer 1985 Wanderlust catalog. The first featured a really fantastic pencil sketch cover from staff artist Rob Stein. Emulating a well worn sketchbook the drawing is very solid and well composed. The painted dragonfly that has landed on the book doesn’t catch your eye until second glance. It’s really […]
In this last part of the interview Mike talks about the end of the catalog era at Banana Republic and life at BR after the departure of the Zieglers. We all look forward to hearing much more about this time in the Ziegler’s upcoming memoir Wild Company. See also the History section for a selection […]
When I started, the process was a little piecemeal. The illustrators weren’t given that much direction, and we would have to try to make the pages work with what we got from them. Also, the merchandisers weren’t actually working on the catalog and they’d have unreasonable expectations of how much can fit on a page. […]
Several months ago I sent a note to Ward Shumaker, the San-Francisco-based illustrator who did a lot of work for Banana Republic in the catalog days. He in turn put me in contact with catalog Production Artist, Mike Madrid. Mike got his start at Banana, and stayed on through the end of the catalog era, […]
Got some amazing news this weekend in the form of a message posted to our Facebook wall: “Thank you Abandoned Republic for being keepers of the flame. Coming soon from Simon and Schuster and now available for pre-order at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com the long-awaited memoir from the founders of our long lost […]
The Wanderlust issue begins with a fantastic illustration of the BR Air Corps on bivouac in North Africa. The bi-plane on one side, the company flag with a star on the flagpole…such a nice touch, why didn’t they sell flags along with aviator scarves and flight helmets? There are many nods to civilized life….a […]
This is the first of Mel and Patricia Ziegler’s many travelogues, the African Journal. The cover is her portrait of the two of them in full regalia at work in the African bush. As the cab driver in London hilariously asks, “Mr. and Mrs. Livingstone, I presume?” This 1984 catalog retains a lot of the […]
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. That change was made in the Holiday 1987 catalog (not yet scanned). There are lots of […]
This catalog was the first one I picked up when I started collecting Banana Republic stuff in 2011, and it’s the first one I scanned into the archive. Having just presented Spring ’85 and ’86, I thought I’d take another look at it before we move on to Spring ’88. (See where I’m going with […]
Maria, a fan of my Facebook page posted this picture yesterday to show off her 1980s Banana Republic jacket. It wasn’t one I immediately recognized. It’s not the Bush jacket, or the Correspondent’s jacket, and certainly isn’t a Safari jacket. But it had a BIG LABEL, so we know it’s an older piece. Obviously, it’s […]
Banana Republic began issuing catalog updates in 1985. Each season had at least one, sometimes two. They are un-numbered. So Spring 1986 was #27, then it’s update was issued, then #28 Summer. The point of the update was to nudge the customer to make a purchase if they hadn’t already, to take a second look […]
I was first introduced to Banana Republic by my Dad, Roger, in 1984 or 85. He had been living in the Western Alaskan bush teaching school in Yupik eskimo villages since 1977 and returned to New Mexico for summer visits every year. I’m not sure, but I imagine he had some BR clothes shipped to […]
The Spring 1986 Catalog #27 brings us another travel journal from Banana Republic founders Mel and Patricia Ziegler, but instead of a journey to the deepest, darkest jungle or some sun-baked savannah they take us to the heart of pre-Glasnost Russia. What a surprise this must have been to find in your mailbox. The cover […]
A 2012 eBay auction brought us a rare example of a true surplus item as sold in BR stores. This amazing Italian Army Field Jacket complete with authentic label dated 1976 (see below) still has the price tag attached. Notice the angled pockets on the chest. I can’t help but think that is is the […]
Let’s journey into the jungle that is the 1985 Spring Catalog #22…. This is the second catalog that features a travel journal from BR founders Mel and Patricia Ziegler. The first was #19, their African trip. This voyage to the Amazon follows the same format: The journal is written in yellow sections on the sides […]
Presented in it’s entirety, Catalog #21 the 1984 Christmas edition. I posted a page a day with a few comments for every page. This catalog seems to me to have the last vestiges of the original BR catalog, the next few years would bring a huge expansion of BR with bigger and more ambitious catalogs and […]
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 […]
This catalog archive has definitely inspired me to start collecting vintage Banana Republic stuff, but it’s also put me in touch with other Banana Republic enthusiasts which has been a real treat. Vintage clothing collector JT shared his Banana Republic collection with us, stylishly displayed on a leather armchair straight from the Bengal Explorer’s Club […]
I added this catalog to my collection recently. I hadn’t seen it before, though after I bought it I saw it go for half the price and without the yellow banner. But the yellow banner is kind of cool. Obviously catalogs bound for a certain region had a special cover made to announce the opening […]
This book was published by Ballantine Books in 1986 and it’s a must have for any vintage Banana Republic fan. It’s everything you love about the catalogs in long form. BR Greatest Hits Vol. 1… The clothing illustrations are large and plentiful and the writing is more expansive. The sense of nostalgia and the culture […]
It’s been too long since I’ve added a new catalog to the archive! So many projects, so little time. Enjoy this one, it’s a great example of why you loved Banana Republic in the first place. Great clothes, artfully presented, with a heavy dose of wit, humor, and wanderlust. “Voices From Africa” presents Banana Republic […]
The 1985 Holiday Catalog has been scanned , tagged, and added to the archive. Enjoy!
I asked Kevin Sarkki for the backstory on the 1985 Catalog Cover and provided him with a key to identify the people in the image. For more about Kevin check out the interview with him. “The Holiday 1985 cover was perhaps the most collaborative cover. The logo/masthead featured Primo Angeli’s design punctuated by Patricia Zeigler’s […]
This gallery was made possible by former Banana Republic staff artist Kevin Sarkki who generously scanned his personal archive. An interview with Kevin is coming soon. The original Banana Republic catalog was printed as a duo-tone, an inexpensive two-color printing technique that fit the funky style of a surplus clothing company. The early catalogs were […]
Scanning catalogs, as I do on an almost daily basis these days, I noticed that the Holiday 1985 Catalog credited the cover art to a a 25 year old staff artist named “Kevin Sarkki.” A quick Internet search led to an email exchange with Kevin, who was indeed a Banana Republic staff illustrator from 1982-85. In fact, […]
This second batch of duotone covers from early Banana Republic are all by BR co-founder Patricia Ziegler. The animal spots make a return for the 1981 Gift Catalog. What really stands out there is the appearance of the 2nd BR store ever–the San Francisco location at Polk and Green. I visited this store in the late […]
Unbelievably exciting stuff to post! This weekend I got in touch with an artist credited on a 1986 catalog. Kevin Sarkki, it turns out, was the very first artist hired by Banana Republic back in 1982. I’ll be posting a fascinating interview with Kevin soon, but for now I’m excited beyond belief to share […]
Added 2 new covers to the covers gallery today. I’m pacing myself now, having added 2 complete catalogs to get the ball rolling. From here on out I think it’ll come in small bites, so keep coming back. Subscribe to the blog or join the Facebook page to get a hit of old BR when […]
There’s lots of interesting bits in the catalog that show BR growing and changing along the way. Hiring notices, store location lists, statements of philosophy, etc. Rendered as always in their unmistakable style.
Why go to all this trouble to make a Banana Republic Catalog archive? The short answer: Because it’s too wonderful not to exist. There has to be one somewhere, and frankly, I’m appalled it took this long to make it happen. C’mon, people. Our culture needs preserving! My story is this: I loved Banana Republic […]
Newly Updated! 1985-1988 Available.
