Born in Merano, Italy, made her debut in 1974 as stage designer at the Schaubühne in Berlin.

Then, she specialised in costume designing and worked with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Samuel Beckett and Luc Bondy. In 1981, she won the Förderpreis der Berliner Akademie der Künste (Fine Art Academy Award). In 1990, she was named by Theater Heute “Best Costume Designer of the Year”. From 1989 to 2000, she taught the art of costume at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, then in 2002 at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Since 1987, she has been regularly working with Robert Wilson. Highlights of their collaboration include Quartett (Heiner Müller) in Stuttgart, The Forest at the Berlin Volksbühne, De Materie in Amsterdam, Schwanengesang at the Munich Kammerspiele, Black Rider, Alice and Time Rocker at Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Parsifal at the Hamburg Staatsoper, Alceste and Orphée et Eurydice at Théâtre du Châtelet, the Ring at Zurich Opera. She also designed the costumes of Lohengrin at Metropolitan Opera in New York and for the Bayreuth Festival. She took part in several productions at the Salzburg Festival, under the artistic direction of Gerard Mortier: Erwartung / Le Château de Barbe-Bleue, Pelléas et Mélisande, Mitridate and La Mort de Danton. In 2016,the Merano Arte gallery organised a retrospective of her creations.

At the Paris Opera: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, 1988; Madama Butterfly, 1993; Pelléas et Mélisande, 1997