Camille Assaf is a French and American costume designer for theater, dance, opera and film.

She most recently designed costumes for the Nine Jeweled Deer an opera by Sivan Eldar and Ganavya Doraiswamy, with art by Julie Mehretu, directed by Peter Sellars at the Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence (2025), and One morning turns into an Eternity, also directed by Peter Sellars at the Salzburg Festival (2025). Other collaboration with director Peter Sellars: Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater for the Teatro dell Opera di Roma and San Francisco Symphony, Castor et Pollux and Beatrice di Tenda for the Opéra National de Paris, Charpentier's Médée for the Berlin Staatsoper under den Linden, and Le Roman de Fauvel at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

She has collaborated as costume designer on director Silvia Costa's Macbeth, at the Comédie Française, and her upcoming production of I didn't know / Curlew River, at the Opéra National de Loraine.

Camille is also a frequent collaborator of choreographer Benjamin Millepied, for whom she designed Romeo and Juliet Suite, at the Seine Musicale, Unstill Life at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, On the other side, at the Teatro dell Opera di Roma*, and the Nico Muhly / Benjamin Millepied retrospective, danced by the LA DanceProject at the Philharmonie de Paris. More recently (2025), she designed Koyaanisqatsi under the impulse of Benjamin Millepied : a collective dance piece performed outdoors all around Paris with contributions by choreographers Dimitri Chamblas, Emmanuelle Huynh, Benjamin Millepied, Jamar Roberts et Pam Tanowitz on the famous film score by Philip Glass.

Other opera costume designs include : Verdi's Don Carlos directed by Vincent Huguet at Theater Basel, two operas by Grétry, directed by Marshall Pynkoski: Richard Coeur de Lion and La Caravane du Caire at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Il trovatore directed by Stephen Wadsworth at the Houston Grand Opera, and for director James Darrah, two operas by Philip Glass: The Fall of the House of Usher, an opera turned film for the Boston Lyric Opera and Les Enfants Terribles at Long Beach Opera and Opera Omaha.

With her long-time collaborators, contemporary artists Gerard & Kelly, she has designed costumes for various films and performance pieces including the most recent Gay guerilla at the Centre Pompidou, Panorama, premiered at the Collection Pinault / Bourse de Commerce and also Reusable Parts / Endless Love (Palais de Tokyo, Centre National de la Danse) and Timelining (Centre Pompidou, Paris).

Camille designed costumes for many of Stephen Wadsworth's productions, including Fidelio at the Santa Fe Opera, Cosi Fan Tutte (a Juilliard Opera/Metropolitan Opera Lindemann co-production), and The Beaumarchais plays at the McCarter Theater, among others.

A few of her designs were exhibited in the historic exhibit Costume at the turn of the Century, 1990-2015, in Moscow, among the works of many of her peers from around the world. The exhibit travels to the Hunan Province of China in the summer 2017.

Internationally, her work was seen in Phnom Penh, Hong Kong, Shanghai and New Delhi. In 2008, under the direction of her mentor, the late costume designer Eiko Ishioka, she was part of the small team of international designers to contribute to the Beijing Olympics Opening and closing Ceremonies, for director Zhang Yimou.


Full bio and awards here

Quick tour of favorite designs