The original Banana Republic was founded by Mell and Patricia Ziegler in 1978. The couple was known for acquiring interesting clothing items that their travel-related jobs brought them in contact with. They eventually opened a store in the Mill Valley area of Northern California. They were known for a hand-drawn catalogue of items with traveler/explorer stories printed alongside, and their safari-themed retail locations. The Zieglers recount their adventures in the first ten years in their memoir, Wild Company, published in 2012 by Simon and Schuster.

Gap Inc. acquired Banana Republic in 1983 and by 1988 the founders, Mel and Patricia Ziegler, lost creative control, eventually rebranding it as masstige, an accessible mass luxury clothing retailer. The literate articles, hand-drawn catalog, and eccentric tourist-oriented items were phased out and were replaced with more luxurious, but not unique, items for which the brand would be eventually known for, currently replacing higher quality materials for mass quality lower cost fabric standards.