Sandra Straukaitė
Costume and fashion designer Sandra Straukaitė (b. 1970) completed studies in costume design at Stepas Žukas School of Applied Arts in Kaunas (1985–9) and at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (1989–93). Her work is distinguished for the non-conformist approach to fashion design and avant-garde elements, yet her costumes are always functional, usually transformable and displaying the principles of anti-fashion. In the 1990s, she took part in avant-garde fashion
festivals in Riga, Moscow, Tbilisi and Vienna. In 2010, she won the Baltic Fashion Award for her conceptual designs and innovation in fashion at the annual fashion competition in Heringsdorf (Germany). In 1999, she co-founded “Mados Infekcija” (Fashion Infection) and remained artistic director of this largest annual Lithuanian fashion event until the present day. Since 2008, she has also organized “Injekcija” (Injection), a competition and showcase for young aspiring fashion designers.
She made her debut in theatre by designing costumes for Oskaras Koršunovas’ Hello Sonya New Year after Alexander Vvedensky’s Christmas at the Ivanovs (Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, 1994) and for the same director’s production of Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman (Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, 1995). Since then, she has designed costumes for over 40 theatre productions directed by Koršunovas, Ignas Jonynas, Živilė Montvilaitė, Jonas Jurašas, Jonas Vaitkus, Algirdas Latėnas, Gintaras Makarevičius, Jonas Tertelis and Kirsten Delholm at major theatres in Vilnius and Šiauliai, as well as in Russia, Norway, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Her contribution for the performance for children Old Man of Bones on the Iron Mountain directed by Jonas Tertelis (LNDT, 2016) brought her the Golden Cross of the Stage (awarded together with the entire creative team). She has also collaborated with choreographers Anželika Cholina (Sketches After Eight, LNOBT, 1996) and Agnija Šeiko (Wasted Land, 2011; Drifted, 2019; Oneiro, 2020; Indigo. Das Schliemann Projekt, 2022, which was awarded the Golden Cross of the Stage).
Among her major works in musical theatre are costumes for Kęstutis Antanėlis and Arūnas Navakas’ rock opera Peer Gynt (1997), Bronius Kutavičius’ opera Lokys (2000) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (Bergen National Opera Theatre, 2013; LNOBT, 2015). In 2018, Straukaitė started her collaboration with the Klaipėda State Musical Theatre, where she designed costumes for Giedrius Kuprevičius’ opera Prussians (2018), Theodorakis’ ballet Zorba the Greek (2018), Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2019), and open-air productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (2020) and Orff’s Carmina Burana at the historic site of the Klaipėda Shipyard (2023).
In 2019, she made her debut in film, creating costumes for the Invisible (dir. by Ignas Jonynas). In 2022, when Kaunas became the European Capital of Culture in 2022, she designed the costumes for the Kaunas 2022 Contemporary Kaunas Myth trilogy.
