Nina Lepilina was born in Moscow and studied costume design at MCHAT (Moscow Art Theatre), where she subsequently worked from 1992 to 1994. This was followed by collaboration with Moidele Bickel on the costume design of Peter Stein's »The Oresteia« in Moscow. In 1995 she accepted an invitation from Heiner Müller and came to the Berliner Ensemble as a guest. Since then she has been working as a freelance costume designer.
Engagements for theater, opera and dance have taken her to the Theater am Halleschen Ufer, Volksbühne, Deutsches Theater/ Kammerspiele, the Jewish Museum and the Konzerthaus Berlin in Berlin, to the State Opera, Ballet and Theatre in Hanover as well as to the Hans Otto Theater Potsdam, the Graz Opera and the Bonn Opera, to the theaters in Lucerne, Freiburg and Lübeck. She worked for the Novosibirsk State Opera as part of a co-production of the Russian Cultural Days with the German Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2004 she was awarded the Golden Mask Theater Prize for the set design of the production »Life with an Idiot« in Moscow.
For »The Love for Three Oranges« Nina Lepilina worked for the first time at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg.