Costume Designer Ray Aghayan, Partner of Bob Mackie, Dies

Ray Aghayan, a two-time Oscar nominee who won the first Emmy Award for costume design, dressed the glamorous Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross and did the costumes for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 83. Aghayan, the longtime partner of Bob Mackie, who started as his assistant, died of “unknown causes,” the Archive of American Television said Wednesday. Aghayan was instrumental in persuading the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to officially recognize the contribution of costume designers. With Mackie, he won the first ever Emmy for costume design in 1967 for NBC’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. He went on to earn two more Emmys (amid nine total nominations) and received a career achievement award from the Costume Designers Guild in 2008.  – - more on this Story

Costume Designer Edith Head won Most Oscars

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Sara Fishko

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 Who has the most Academy Award nominations and Statues of any woman in history? It’s Edith Head, once Costume Designer to the stars. WNYC’s Sara Fishko has more, in this edition of Fishko Files. 

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Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie has designed for icons such as Diana Ross, Cher and Liza Minnelli. The "sultan of sequins," as Mackie's sometimes called, has received nine Emmy Awards and three Academy Award nominations.
Costume Designer and costume design historian Deborah Nadoolman Landis created Michael Jackson's red Thriller jacket (1983) and Harrison Ford's iconic fedora and jacket for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), among other famous costumes. She is the David C. Copley Chair, and Director of the Copley Center for Costume Design at the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television. Her most recent book is Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design.

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