She was born in Nuremberg. She studied costume design at Cologne. She completed her studies at the Cologne Academy of Arts (Werkkunstschule ) and in the meantime worked as assistant costume designer for the Cologne Theater (Schauspielhaus). The following years she worked as a costume designer for the Theater Dortmund and the Theater Ulm. She has worked for many directors including John Dew, Eike Gramss, Stefan Herheim, Dietrich W. Hilsdorf, Juri Lubimow, Jean-Louis Martinoty, Otto Schenk , Peter Mussbach, Giancarlo del Monaco. He has designed the costumes for dance performances, operas, musicals and the theatre productions such as: Rigoletto, Guilio Cesare, The Barber of Seville [Il barbiere di Siviglia], Otello, Macbeth, War and Peace, The Nutcracker, The Firebird [L’oiseau de feu], West Side Story, Evita, Cabaret, Jekyl and Hyde, The Flying Dutchman [Der fliegende Holländer], Lucrezia Borgia, Threepenny Opera [Die Dreigroschenoper], My fair Lady etc, in Antwerp, Basel. Berlin, Bremen, Catania, Frankfurt, Ferrara, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Copenhagen, Munich, Paris, London, Dusseldorf, Salzburg, Stuttgart, Ulm and Vienna. Renate Schmitzer has collaborated with the GNO in the production of Macbeth (2004-05), Ligeti’s Le grand macabre (2003/04) and Don Giovanni (2006/07).