Bregje van Balen danced for 18 years with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) I and II. Always interested in costume design, she created her first costumes in 1995 for the NDT's annual workshop and for small dance projects. After retiring as a dancer, she trained as a fashion designer at the Baruch Mode Academie.She has designed costumes for several companies, including Nederlands Dans Theater I and II, the Royal Ballet in London, the Norwegian National Ballet, the Gothenburg Ballet, Malmö Stadsteater, the Hamburg Ballet, Introdans, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Icelandic Dance Theatre, the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Staatstheater Mainz, the Gärtnerplatztheater, the Aalto Theater, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, and the Stuttgart Ballet. Bregje van Balen has worked with choreographers such as Johan Inger, Jorma Elo, Medhi Walerski, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, Lukas Timulak, Bryan Arias, Ina Christel Johannessen, Jo Strømgren, Alexander Ekman, Patrick Delcroix and Cathy Marston.At the Basel Theatre, she designed the costumes for Richard Wherlock's narrative ballet Heidi.