Ishioka was born in Tokyo to a commercial graphic designer father and a housewife mother. Although her father encouraged her interest in art as a child, he discouraged her desire to follow him into the business. She graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. As director of costume design for opening ceremony of 2008 Beijing Olympics, Ishioka found inspiration from art pieces such as Greek statues and African helmets. As a result, a large number of costumes that are able to visualize fabric texture, actions, and aura were designed under her hands.
Advertising career
Ishioka began her career with the advertising division of the cosmetics company Shiseido in 1961 and won Japan's most prestigious advertising award four years later. Ishioka was discovered by Tsuji Masuda who created Parco Ikebukuro from the ailing Marubutsu Department Store. When Parco did well and expanded to a Shibuya location in 1973, Ishioka designed Parco Shibuya's first 15-second commercial for the grand opening with "a tall, thin black woman, dressed in a black bikini, dancing with a very small man in a Santa Claus outfit". She became deeply involved in Parco's image. Her last Parco campaign involved Faye Dunaway as "face of Parco" wearing black, on a black chair against a black wall, and peeling and eating an egg in one minute as "a film for Parco." She became its chief art director in 1971 and her work there is noted for several campaigns featuring Faye Dunaway and for its open and surreal eroticism. In 1983 she ended her association with Parco and opened her own design firm. In 2003, she designed the logo for the Houston Rockets.
Film career
In 1985 director Paul Schrader chose Ishioka to be the production designer for his 1985 film '. Her work went on to win her a special award for artistic contribution at the Cannes Film Festival that year. Ishioka's work with Francis Ford Coppola on the poster for the Japanese release of Apocalypse Now led to their later collaboration in Coppola's Dracula, which earned Ishioka an Academy Award. Ishioka also worked on four of Tarsem Singh's films, beginning with the Jennifer Lopez starrer The Cell in 2000 and including The Fall, Immortals, and Mirror Mirror. Ishioka also designed costumes for theater and the circus. In 1999 she designed costumes for Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Dutch Opera. She designed costumes for Cirque du Soleil: Varekai, which premiered in 2002 as well as for Julie Taymor's Broadway musical', which premiered in 2011. She also directed the music video for Björk's "Cocoon" in 2002 and designed costumes for the "Hurricane" tour of singer Grace Jones in 2009. Ishioka's work is included in the permanent collection of museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The 1990 book "Eiko by Eiko" collects her work in art direction and graphic design. A second book, "Eiko on Stage", followed in 2000.
Death
Ishioka died of pancreatic cancer in Tokyo on January 21, 2012. She married her companion Nicholas Soultanakis in hospital a few months before her death.
Legacy
Her archive has been given to UCLA Library Special Collections.
