Daniel James Cole has designed costumes and scenery for opera, theatre, film, and television, including several collaborations with Don Giovanni director Chuck Hudson. Daniel designed costumes for Arizona Opera’s recent production of Ariadne auf Naxos. At Manhattan School of Music, he designed costumes for Il matrimonio segretto, Der Wildschutz, Zemire und Azor, Cendrillon, Cosi fan tutte, The Ghosts of Versailles, and Macbeth. Productions at Seattle Opera include Don Pasquale, Cavalleria rusticana, and Das Barbecü. Other opera credits include Le Comte Ory for Wolf Trap Opera, Hansel and Gretel for Opera Cleveland, Il barbiere di Siviglia for Opera Maine, La rondine for Chautauqua Opera, and Dido and Aeneas for New York Chamber Opera. Daniel served as stylist for La sonnambula for Opera Orchestra of New York, and he created recital gowns for Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh of La Gran Scena Opera, the drag alter-ego of musicologist Ira Siff.
Off and off-off Broadway credits include productions for Theater for the New City, The Actors Studio, Bleeker Street Theater, Here Arts Center, The Vortex Theater, Grove Street Playhouse, and the Cherry Lane Theater. He has also designed several films, including Mint Julep, starring Angelica Page, David Morse, and James Gandolfini, and he art-directed rear-projection visuals for the REM Monster concert tour. His work as a stylist has included print and media campaigns, as well as fashion editorials for the Thai edition of L’Official magazine.
Daniel is on the faculty of both New York University and Fashion Institute of Technology, teaching classes in costume design, fashion history, and fashion ethnography. He is the co-author of The History of Modern Fashion (Laurence King Publishers, 2015), which was shortlisted for the Millia Davenport Award. He has also published numerous academic articles and chapters and is a specialist in traditional dress and textiles of Indonesia and Malaysia. Daniel received his MFA from New York University, and is a member of United Scenic Artists, and Costume Society of America. He is frequently quoted on fashion history topics in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Town and Country, The Houston Chronicle, The New York Post, and The Los Angeles Times.
