Philipp Basener is a German costume designer and drag artist. He trained at the Otto Falckenberg School of Performing Arts in Munich and has worked at theatres across Germany, including Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Theater Bonn, and the state theatres in Kassel and Cottbus.
He is co-founder of the art collective CHIN CHIN, which combines queer club culture with interdisciplinary performance art. Under the drag persona Mad M. Moustache, he has collaborated with artists worldwide. His joint exhibitions with Swedish artist Märta Mattsson have been shown in Gothenburg, Tirana, Munich and at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.
Basener was the creative director for the magazine of the German theatre union GDBA during the 2021/2022 season and designed visuals for the 2024/2025 season brochure for Staatstheater Cottbus.
His costume design, shaped by a gender-fluid artistic expression, includes productions such as The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet, Alice and The Brothers Karamazov. He frequently collaborates with directors Laura Linnenbaum, Armin Petras and Philipp Rosendahl at major stages in Frankfurt, Bonn and Cottbus.
In the 2024/2025 season, he designed costumes for Rapture by Lucy Kirkwood and Hamlet by William Shakespeare at Staatstheater Cottbus, Mama Odessa by Maxim Biller at Staatstheater Hannover, and Der blinde Passagier by Maria Lazar at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.
In 2025/2026, he also designs costumes for A Streetcar Named Desire at Staatsschauspiel Dresden and Tristan und Isolde at Korea National Opera in Seoul.