Ellen Stanistreet is a costume designer in film and tv, based in Naarm - Melbourne.
Ellen has a Bachelor of Design (Fashion), and a Master of Fine Arts (Design for Performance) from NIDA.
Growing up in creative household where expression and making were prioritised, she found costume and fashion to hold the most fascination from a young age. The ways in which clothing weaves the story of people through social customs, codes, identity and history, have always driven her to work in the field of costume design for film.
Her early career spanned costume making in mainstage dance and musical productions. She then took time out of the industry to establish a small bespoke fashion business, and then moved on to manage one of Australia’s largest bridal couture workrooms. These turns in commercial fashion honed her skills in designing to express personality, and the importance of fit and construction.
Her first feature film as costume designer is award-winning, queer drama the Greenhouse, now streaming on Netflix. It premiered at the British Film Institute’s FLARE festival, and has screened at over 20 film festivals across the globe. It won the ADG award for Best Director (Thomas Wilson-White) and the Best Australian Feature at MQFF.
Ellen’s second feature as designer is Sare Kern’s Moja Vesna which premiered at 72nd Berlin Film Festival, the only Australian film in this year’s selection.
Her third feature as designer is The Rooster, starring Hugo Weaving and Phoenix Raei, written and directed by Mark Leonard Winter. The Rooster premiered at 2023 MIFF. It has won numrous awards and enjoyed screenings at all major film festivals around the country, the Indian International Film Festival, and was a top ten streamer on Netflix.
Most recently, Ellen has designed the feature films Strange Creatures (2024, by Henry Boffin; and Sweet Milk Lake (release 2025) by Harvey Zielinski.
Ellen was nominated for an AACTA award for Best Costume Design in Film 2024 for The Rooster.
She was named in 2021 Inside Film Ones to Watch for costume design, and nominated for the Broadway World Award for Best Costume Design in a Play, for Home Invasion (2018).
Contact: ellen.stanistreet@gmail.com
Ellen respectfully acknowledges the peoples of the Kulin Nation - past, present and emerging - on whose land she gratefully lives and works.