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Swinda Reichelt

Costume Designer

Swinda Reichelt was born in the former eastern part of Germany. From 1985-1989 she served an apprenticeship for the Master of Costume, tailoring for theatre and opera in East Berlin. Having a strong base in the Design and Costumes fabrication, she learned from the "old school". The collapse of the Berlin Wall led her to a new world of design and creativity where no boundaries exist and no ideas are stifled.

Her career expanded as the Lead Designer at the avant-garde fashion show, "Off-line Berlin ’90", featured by MTV/News Channe "Tagesthemen"/Magazines: "Bild", "Fashion" etc.

Swinda has been a Costume Designer since 1989 for different productions, most notably The Komische Opera/Berlin (1993), Ballet/Berlin-20 dancer (1994), and Opera/Gasteig Munich/Germany (1996). In 1997, she found her way into the new German Cinema with her first feature film by Rialto Film Productions, "Hope".

This was followed with work in TV-productions, opera, theatre, dance, fashion and art shows. In 2000, she did the costume design for the "Millennium Awards Show" for 50 dancers and a speech by the German Chancellor, G. Schroeder (Life/TV). Her last released feature film "Detective Lovelorn" ran in 2002 at the "Berlinale" Film Festival in Berlin/Germany.

Since 2001 Swinda has been living in Los Angeles. She worked here on several feature films: "The Brothel" by A. Waddell, "The Gun" by V. Alenikov, "Garcia Girls" by G. Riedel and a number of shorts. Swinda also shared her knowledge of costume design as a guest lecturer for UCLA’s "directing classes" in 2003.

You can view more of her work at www.swinda.net