Forever 21 Is Now Selling Patrick Nagel Clothing

An ’80s icon is back, but instead of living on a canvas, you’ll find his work on sweatshirts and tees.

By Susannah Cohen

Instagram influencer Kacie Shea Ryan was chosen by Forever 21 to model their latest Patrick Nagel collaboration.

A white nothingness where the nose should be. A strong eyebrow and a slash of cheekbone. A sweep of dark hair. This, in the ’80s, was how we thought a woman should look — and it was all thanks to commercial artist Patrick Nagel.

Now, his sterile-yet-sexy aesthetic is back.

Forever 21 recently launched a mini collection, for men and women, including plus sizes, featuring prints of iconic Nagel women reclining in bathing suits, posing with panthers, or shielding their faces from the sun on a selection of sweatshirts and tees (including an appropriately ’80s-style boxy crop t-shirt).

It’s just the latest in a sporadic series of fashion and beauty Nagel collaborations that have popped up in recent years.

Linear and elegant, with a simplicity reminiscent of Japanese prints, the images will be familiar to anyone who has lived through the ’80 or admired the artwork on the windows of nail salons.

Dancer Dimitri Rojas modeling the $29.99 Patrick Nagel hoodie.

In the same way that Charles Gibson established popular notions of beauty at the end of the 19th century with his illustrated Gibson Girls — tall, willowy creatures with impossibly S-shaped torsos and big, puffy clouds of hair — Nagel set the tone for the 1980s. Often captured gazing enigmatically into the distance, a gash of red lipstick contrasting against a flat, pale complexion, Nagel’s idealized woman looked like Dynasty actress (and British national treasure) Joan Collins, reimagined as something of a vampire due to her ghostly pallor.

“I don’t think I want to know these women too well,” he once said.

“They never come out in the sunlight. They just stay up late and smoke and drink a lot.” 

In Nagel’s heyday, this androgynous, nocturnal creature could be found on the pages of Playboy, where his work regularly appeared. Thanks to Nagel’s partnership with Mirage Editions and the fine art printer Jeff Wasserman, screenprints of the Nagel woman adorned the walls of many of the era’s bachelor pads, her manicured blankness chiming with the black-and-chrome minimalism of the day. 

Most famously, she adorned the cover of Duran Duran’s 1982 album Rio, although you can’t imagine her actually dancing on the sand. Peering over the top of her aviators while lounging on a yacht? Yes. Mussing up her hair and getting sand between her toes? Not so much.

For $14.99, this Nagel shirt can be yours.

From there, the Nagel woman leapt into the real world. Robert Palmer’s 1985 video for “Addicted to Love” featured a backing band of blank-faced, starkly made-up women dressed in black — a Patrick Nagel illustration come to life. 

But, like much things from the ’80s, the Nagel woman soon descended into kitsch. By the end of the decade, every low-rent nail bar and beauty salon featured Nagel-style illustrations on their walls and in their windows, and the look became visual shorthand for tacky mall art.

Nagel himself died in 1984 at the age of 38 and in a painfully ironic ’80s way: He suffered a heart attack in his car after taking part in a celebrity aerobathon to raise funds for the American Heart Association. 

But now, 25 years later, the Nagel woman has come stalking back to life.

The late April timing of Forever 21’s Nagel-inspired line was perhaps not the best, coming out a month into the COVID-19 lockdown. But the retailer made the best of it, roping in influencers to interpret the collection in their own way, in the absence of operating photo studios and shoot teams. 

Wear an iconic Nagel lady on your front and your back for $17.99.

“Since this was shot during shelter from home, we are having a great response to the collection. We brought together a model, an influencer, and a dancer. The dynamic cast pushed through to prove that the human spirit is alive and well,” a press spokesperson from Forever 21 told OK Whatever by email.

The Forever 21 collection follows a series of sporadic Patrick Nagel collaborations and revivals in recent years. In 2015, the Comedy Central show Moonbeam City channelled Nagel’s aesthetic with its androgynous cast of animated characters. Urban Decay paid homage to the artist with a lip palette in 2017. Streetwear brand Pleasures dropped four pieces featuring Nagel’s artwork in 2018.

What lies behind the resurgence? This time around, it’s not so much about the Nagel woman as role model (or beauty goals) as it is the artist himself. Wearing art has become a thing. 

In fact, the Patrick Nagel collection follows the success of Forever 21’s previous artist collaboration using the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The same licensing company, Artestar, represents both artists and its roster of recent projects also includes Keith Haring x American Eagle and Basquiat x Off-White™. 

Patrick Nagel pairs well with the current tiny sunglasses trend.

Art and fashion collaborations, of course, are nothing new; think Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dresses in the ’60s, or Gianni Versace’s seminal Warhol tribute in 1991. 

But artist merch has exploded in recent years, and at every level of the market. Uniqlo’s partnership with MoMA has seen it produce t-shirts emblazoned with the work of artists including Jackson Pollock and Keith Haring. In 2018, meanwhile, Vans x Van Gogh set the standard for felicitous collaboration names. Forever 21 x Patrick Nagel is just the latest example in a long-running trend.

It’s good to see him back, though, isn’t it? 

Although in all fairness, Nagel has never entirely gone out of fashion. Art auctions have been selling his works for years, with prices climbing exponentially in recent times. One of his works from 1982 recently fetched $112,500 at an auction in Dallas — far outstripping its pre-auction estimate of $60,000-$80,000. 

Which is good news for anyone who had the foresight to invest in Nagel’s work back in the 1980s. For the rest of us Nagel fans, though, wearing his iconic images on a t-shirt might be a better way to go.

SUSANNAH COHEN IS A JOURNALIST FROM LONDON AND PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (VIA SAN FRANCISCO), WHO WRITES ABOUT FASHION, BEAUTY, AND WELLNESS.

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