Her father was worried that Elko Ishioka would be eaten alive by the Japanese design world of the 1960s. He should perhaps have feared for the Industry. The Academy Award-winning designer (for the costumes In 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula), who was 73 when she died Jan. 21, shot like a flare through the worlds of art direction, graphic art and costume design. After starting her own ad agency In Japan In the '70s, she moved to the U.S. and began to work on movies and stage shows. Her signature look was fierce, structured, color-saturated eroticism: high ribbed collars, sinewy coats of armor and sinister headgear. It's no surprise that some of her best work was for women as larger than life as she was—Grace Jones, Faye Dunaway, Bjork and Julie Taymor. Plus, Snow White. Her last film, Mirror, Mirror, Is out Mar. 30.
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