Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis

Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Ph.D., Academy Award-nominated costume designer and distinguished professor at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, is the Founding Director of the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design. Her celebrated design career includes Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Coming to America (1988), and Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983). She is a two-term past president of the Hollywood Costume Designers Guild, Local 892, and curator of the 2012 Hollywood Costume exhibition at the V&A in London. Landis is the author of six books including the catalogue for her landmark exhibition, Hollywood Costume; the editor-in-chief of the three-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design (2024); and the upcoming Dressed: The History and Practice of Hollywood Costume Design (2025).