Banana Republic Logo Gear
Featured: Banana Republic Logo Gear (Shirts, etc)
About The Author
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. 7 Comments
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I have some great memories of my Banana Republic t-shirts. I had four of them and they were the envy of the mid-west high school that I went to in the 1980’s. I had heard of Banana Republic off of 60 minutes that was doing a piece on them. My favorite were the bison and the iguana, I wore them until they fell apart. The cool thing about Banana Republic was they were not hip or trying to be cool, they were just real. Something else that was a plus, not everyone know where to get the stuff. Banana Republic today is the antithesis of its former self.
That is interesting, i didn’t know 60 minutes did a piece on them. I will have to research that and see if it’s archived.
Agree — I HATE Banana Republic now. What happened? It used to be awesome. Just cool and rugged and t-shirts and khakis. Now it’s all cashmere and skirts and dress shirts, etc. They totally sold out. Bring back the good ‘ole BR!!
In it’s golden age BR brilliantly spanned the space between the practical and the stylish, but, well, times change. The safari trend as fashion in a shopping mall wasn’t going to last forever. For die-hards there are plenty of sources for rugged outdoor gear. It’s kind of amazing the brand survived at all, they did a good job of turning it around and making it the retail powerhouse that is, however divorced from it’s origins it may be. Thanks for stopping by!
I don’t agree with the underlying basis of this statement. Banana Republic was well on their way towards transitioning from being a surplus safari/vintage military reseller to a maker of custom travel clothing. They seemed to be aware that the safari line would need to evolve into a line of high end travel oriented clothing. Had The Gap let them do so perhaps it would be just as big a powerhouse, albeit one with more character than the very vanilla version we have today.
That was the good old Bananna Republic.
You could find great t-shirts and Safari items.
I haven’t been back in years. It’s a Yuppie junk now.
When I was in college I moved to Kenya for my studies. I got everything I took with me for my life in Africa from Banana Republic. It’s a shame Gap ruined what it was. I so looked forward to getting their beautiful catalogs in the mail. I lived in my BR T shirts. I still have some of the safari shirts that are the best shirts I have ever owned. I miss the old and real Banana Republic terribly. If only we could bring it back.