Joe Eula

An illustrator, graphic artist, costume designer, stage director, and tastemaker, Joe Eula (January 16, 1925 – October 27, 2004) lived at the center of the high fashion and art worlds. In a career that spanned five decades, he sketched for every major couture house, from Chanel and Givenchy, to Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. He illustrated album covers and/or show posters for Miles Davis, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, and the Supremes. He designed costumes for the choreographer Jerome Robbins. His friendships were no less extensive, from Coco Chanel, with whom he used to treat to movie dates in Paris, to Andy Warhol, Bette Midler, and Elsa Peretti. If modernity was the hallmark of Halston's fashion in the 1970s, it was Eula, as the label's creative director, who helped clarify it with his spare drawings and fluent ideas.