Sabina is an award-winning Australian costume and production designer for stage and screen.
Her design work is underpinned by an appreciation for art history, textiles, and world traditions in film, theatre, and image-making. She holds an MFA (Design for Performance) from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and a BA (Art History) from the University of Queensland, and since 2019 has also been a regular lecturer at NIDA in the undergraduate Design program.
Sabina also works as an illustrator and concept artist, in both digital and traditional mediums.
She is currently working on costume designs for a new production of ‘La Boheme’ for Opera Australia (2026).
Recent stage work includes: Set and costume design for ‘Il Tabarro’ (Victorian Opera & Sydney Festival 2024, presenting live opera aboard the heritage ship Carpentaria, at the National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour), Costume and co-set design for The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s ‘Inferno’ (A new immersive theatre work devised for 17thC chamber music), and costume design for ‘The Barber of Seville’ (Opera Australia’s 2022-23 National Touring production).
Recent screen work includes: Costume design for Tanith Glynn-Maloney’s ‘Finding Jedda’ (2022 AACTA Award Best Short Film), and as costume design assistant for major feature films such as ‘The Fall Guy’,‘Play Dirty’, ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’, and ‘Shang-chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings’.
See below for further credits.
Sabina is the recipient of the 2024 Thelma Afford Award for Costume Design, the co-recipient of a 2024 Green Room Award for the design of Victorian Opera’s ‘Melbourne Cheremushki’, and a 2016 Australian Production Designers Guild Award for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, along with further APDG Award nominations in the categories of Multi-diciplinary Design, Costume Design, and Concept Visualisation. In 2019 her work was published in ‘Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The Next Generation’ by the A.A. Bakhrushin State Theatre Museum, Moscow.
SELECTED CREDITS:
STAGE:
Il Tabarro - Costume and Set Designer. Victorian Opera,Sydney Festival (2024), dir. Con Costi
Inferno - Costume and Co-set Designer. Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (2023), dir. Con Costi
Melbourne, Cheremushki (Shostakovich) - Costume Designer. Victorian Opera (2023), dir. Con Costi
The Barber of Seville (Rossini) - Costume Designer. Opera Australia (2022 National Tour), dir. Priscilla Jackman
Orontea (Cesti) - Costume Designer. Pinchgut Opera (2022), dir. Con Costi
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Britten) - Costume Designer. Sydney Conservatorium of Music/NIDA (2021), dir. Kate Gaul.
48th United Arab Emirates National Day Celebration, Abu Dhabi - Set Design Associate. Betty Productions (2019)
Werther - Costume Consultant. Opera Australia (2019), dir. Con Costi/ Elijah Moshinsky
The Van De Maar Papers - Set and Costume Designer. An Assorted Few (2017), dir. Alexander Berlage
Woyzeck - Set and Costume Designer. NIDA (2016), dir. John Sheedy
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Set and Costume Designer. NIDA (2016), dir. Iain Sinclair
Rats in the Walls - Exhibition/performance co-designer. Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design (2015)
SCREEN:
Play Dirty - Cast Prep Costumer. Amazon MGM (2025)
The Fall Guy - interim Assistant Costume Designer. Universal Pictures (2024)
Finding Jedda - Costume Designer. Orange Entertainment (2021), dir. Tanith Glynn-Maloney
Three Thousand Years of Longing - Costume Design Assistant. Kennedy Miller Mitchell (2022)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Costume Digital Assets Manager/ Design Assistant. Marvel Studios (2021)
The Matrix Awakens: Unreal Engine 5 Demo - Assistant to Kym Barrett (costume designer). Epic Games, (2021)
Boy & Bear - Telescope (MV) - Costume and Production designer. (2019), dir. Nick Waterman
Sweet Tooth - Costume Designer. Bull Ant Productions/AFTRS (2019), dir. Shannon Ashlyn
Picnic at Hanging Rock (TV) - Costume Assistant. FremantleMedia/ Foxtel (2018)
Fitting - Production Designer. Cosmia Production (2018), dir. Emily Avila
Sheppard - Coming Home (MV) - Production Designer. Tasy Pictures/Decca (2018), dir. Nick Waterman
Sink - Costume and Production Designer. Billfilms (2018), dir. Cloudy Rhodes
Willow Beats - Be Kind to Yourself (MV) - Production Designer. (2017), dir. Oren Lavie
WILSN - Walking for Days (MV) - Costume and Production Designer. Triple J/Rage (2016), dir. Priscilla Jackman.
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS:
Thelma Afford Award for Costume Design in Stage and Screen, 2024
APDG AWARDS 2024 - Nomination - Costume Design for Live Performance - Melbourne Cheremushki
APDG AWARDS 2024 - Nomination - Multi-discipline Design for Live Performance - Il Tabarro
APDG AWARDS 2024 - Nomination - Multi-discipline Design for Live Performance - Inferno
GREEN ROOM AWARDS 2024 - Winner - Best Design of an Opera - Melbourne Cheremushki
OPERACHASER AWARDS 2023 - Winner - Outstanding Costume Design - Melbourne Cheremushki
APDG AWARDS 2016 – Winner - Emerging Designer for Live Performance - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
APDG AWARDS 2019 - Nomination - Emerging Designer for Screen - Sweet Tooth
APDG AWARDS 2019 - Nomination - Concept Design Visualisation - Madama Butterfly
William Fletcher Foundation Grant for Stage Design, 2016
EXHIBITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS:
2019: Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The Next Generation - A.A. Bakhrushin State Theatre Museum, Moscow.
2016: Keeping the Body in Mind: Recovery Narratives - The Black Dog Institute, Sydney.
2015: Costume at the Turn of the Century - A.A. Bakhrushin State Theatre Museum, Moscow.
2015: Rats in the Walls/ Exham Priory - Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, Prague.