Leah Piehl began designing costumes in the mid 1990’s as part of a performance collective in San Francisco. After several years as a hobbyist she decided to leave her career in web design and animation, move to Los Angeles to attend CalArts, and become a costume designer full-time.

Leah has been extremely active in the Los Angeles and New York film, theater and dance communities. She is currently designing The Borrowers at South Coast Reperatory. Some of her recent credits include The Dinosaur Within (The Theatre at Boston Court), FULL.STILL HUNGRY. (Ford Amphitheatre, Contra Tiempo), Moscow, Cherry Town (Long Beach Opera), The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (A Noise Within), Satyr Atlas (The Getty Villa), Futura (The Theatre at Boston Court, Pasadena), The Winter's Tale (Theater 150, Ojai), Boom (Furious Theater, Los Angeles), Paradise Lost (Intiman Theater, Seattle), Orestes 2.0 (USC, Los Angeles), Men of Tortuga (Furious Theater, Los Angeles), BobRauschenbergAmerica (The Theater Inside the Ford, Los Angeles), Tree (The Theater Inside the Ford, Los Angeles), Saudade/David Rousseve (UCLA Live), The Pain and the Itch (The Theatre at Boston Court, Pasadena), Monster (Judson Memorial Church, NY), The Wasps (The Lost Theater, Los Angeles), Love Water (Open Fist/EST LA, Los Angeles), Someone in Florida Loves Me (The Paradise Factory Theater, New York), Tartuffe (The Theatre at Boston Court, Pasadena), Miss Julie (Sledgehammer Theater, San Diego), Robots vs. Fake Robots (The Powerhouse Theater, Santa Monica), The Boomerang Kid (The Powerhouse Theater, Santa Monica), Big Death and Little Death (The Road Theater, North Hollywood), The Best Man, (East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theatre, LA), No Mercy (24th Street Theatre, LA), Michele Vinaver’s 911 (REDCAT, Frictions Festival Dijon, Théatre National de la Colline in Paris), Erik Ehn’s Medusachrist (REDCAT) and Bull Spears (La Tea Theater, NYC; Sledgehammer Theater, San Diego). Leah maintains ongoing collaborations with several choreographers including Contra Tiempo, Kate Hutter, Mira Kingsley, Kristen Smiarowski, Rebecca Pappas, and Colin Connor .

Leah's costumes have been featured in several exhibitions with artist Kelly Nipper. Their collaboration, Floyd on the Floor, a Performa Commission at Judson Memorial Church in New York in 2007, was the first of several ongoing video and live performance installations. They recently exhibited Compass at the Migros Museum in Zurich, Shifting Shapes at ArtBaselMiami and Weather Center at the 2010 Whitney Biennial. The exhibition is currently on view at the George Pompidou Center in Paris.

Leah has designed several films including Buzzkill, directed by Steven Kampmann, which recently screened at the Hollywood Film Festival. Other films include The Men's Room, directed by Jan Pickett, A Little Less Conversation, directed by Sasha Friedman and Jane Pickett, Shelly Figg, directed by Caryn Sanchez (AFI Directing Workshop for Women), and The Macabre World of Lavender Williams, directed by Nick Delgado and produced/mentored by Robert Zemeckis (Christopher Lloyd, Rex Linn). She designed the pilot, Mullercize It! with actors Thomas Lennon and R. Ben Garant of Reno 911. Leah has designed costumes for several music videos including Frankie Valli, Rocco DeLuca and the Burden, Killola, Black Light Burns, Giant Drag, Mitchell Schaffer, Skopic, Selena Gomez, Cheeta Girls and Paolo Nutini. Leah also works as a commercial stylist. Creditsi indclude Toyota Prius and Callaway Golf, featuring Phil Mickelson.

Leah currently teaches at the University of Southern California. She has her BA in Political Economy of Industrial Societies from the University of California at Berkeley (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa). She also studied at the University of Padova, Italy. Leah received her MFA in Theater from CalArts in 2006.