Deneuve with Ishioka on Oscar night 1993The cinema lost one of its few truly unique visionaries this week. We've paid homage before and multiple times. 73 year old costume giant Eiko Ishioka, who didn't work in the cinema frequently enough for our tastes succumbed to cancer on Thursday.
We first fell in love with her work via Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and it was hardly an idiosyncratic crush. Millions were instant converts and she won the Oscar for her spectacular creations, from inside out red musculature armor to dazzling perverse lizard-like bridal wear for vampire brides. Just stunning stuff.
I'd be very disappointed/surprised if some goth girl somewhere hasn't tried to copy Sadie Frost's indelible vampire bride look for her wedding night.
Sadie Frost in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Best single costume of the 1990s? Maybe.
In the past decade Ishioka wowed again through Tarsem Singh's filmography (The Cell, The Fall, and Immortals)
Bjork, Grace and a few more film pics after the jump...
Kellan Lutz filming a scene from Immortals (2011)
Lee Pace in "The Fall"
Tarsem and Francis Ford Coppola weren't the only visionaries she collaborated with.
"Cocoon" is only one of Björk's best videos, directed by the artist.
Ishioka recently worked with Grace Jones on a tour providing incredible sculptural creations. Shades of Dracula for the star of Vamp! Few designers have ever been so gifted/daring with bold reds and cool whites, frequent colors in Ishioka's arsenal.
I had recently expressed confusion and disappointment about her costume work on the upcoming Mirror Mirror but even the trailer misled us and that final film represents stronger work than we're expecting, it's a major loss to cinema that they'll be the last new Ishioka pieces blown up on the silver screen.