28 January 2012

Eiko Ishioka (1938 - 2012)

The inspiring Eiko Ishioka, art director and costume designer, died on 26 January at 73. Ms Ishioka, a designer who brought an eerie, sensual surrealism to film and theater, album covers, the 2008 Olympics (above) and Cirque du Soleil, in the process earning an Oscar, a Grammy and various other honours, died of pancreatic cancer in Tokyo.Her aesthetics married East and West — she lived Manhattan for many years. An Oscar winner for Bram Stoker's Dracula, Ms Ishioka also costumed The Fall (2006), an adventure fantasy, and Immortals (2011), a tale of ancient Greece.The young Ishioka began her career in the advertising division of the cosmetics giant Shiseido. She opened her own design company in the early 1970s, with clients like Parco, for whom she created her iconic advertising works for more than a decade. For instance, she created a Parco commercial in which, over a minute and a half, Faye Dunaway wordlessly peels and eats an egg. I've posted this commercial before.She also designed costumes for Grace Jones’s 2009 tourin 2009 and directed Bjork’s music video Cocoon. Her books include Eiko by Eiko(1983) and Eiko on Stage(2000

2 comments:

  1. Dear Beauty: Yes, indeed I'm afraid that the age of genius is coming to a rapid end. It makes for such a dull world. X

    ReplyDelete