Designer Eiko Ishioka died 21 January 2012 of pancreatic cancer. Born in Tokyo on July 12, 1938, she worked in both two and three dimensions, winning awards for a wide variety of work.
After graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1961 (as a graphic designer), she started work in advertising, but went on to design album covers, film costumes, international posters, and more.
The New York Times says “she designed uniforms and outerwear for selected members of the Swiss, Canadian, Japanese, and Spanish teams at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and she was the director of costume design for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
“Ms. Ishioka’s portfolio extended to the circus and even a magic show. She designed the costumes for Cirque du Soleil’s show Varekai (2002) and was the visual artistic director of the illusionist David Copperfield’s Broadway show, Dreams and Nightmares (1996).
“She also designed costumes for the singer Grace Jones’s Hurricane tour in 2009 (they were noteworthy even by Ms. Jones’s lofty standards for the outré) and directed Bjork’s music video ‘Cocoon.’ Her books include Eiko by Eiko (1983) and Eiko on Stage (2000), both available in English.”
She won a Grammy Award in 1986 for her design of Miles Davis’s album Tutu. Closer to our fields, she won an Academy Award and a Saturn Award for her costume designs for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and was nominated for a Saturn for her costume design work in The Cell (2000).
On Broadway, she designed sets and costumes for M. Butterfly (1988), for which she earned two Tony nominations, and, most recently, costumes for the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Her other genre film work also includes: Mirror Mirror (2012), Immortals (2011), The Fall (2006), and “Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre (1987).
She is survived by her husband, Nicholas Soultanakis, whom she married last year; her mother, Mitsuko Saegusa Ishioka; two brothers, Koichiro and Jun Ishioka; and a sister, Ryoko Ishioka.