Kim was born near
Santa Ana, California in 1917 and graduated
Belmont High School in 1935 where she was an art editor for the 1935
Campanile (Belmont's yearbook). The end sheets of the yearbook are free hand drawings of her impressions of high school life atop Crown Hill (the site of Belmont High School). For her post-secondary education, she attended
Chouinard Art Institute (now the
California Institute of the Arts) on a scholarship. Upon graduation, she worked for designer
Raoul Pene du Bois in the film industry but soon started designing for the theatre. Kim designed costumes for Broadway shows, winning
Tony Awards for her costume designs for
The Will Rogers Follies and
Sophisticated Ladies. She received an additional four Tony Award nominations and won the
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design twice. Kim designed costumes for the
American Ballet Theatre as well as other dance companies, including more than 50 works for
Eliot Feld. Furthermore, in 2007 Kim was inducted into the
American Theater Hall of Fame, making her one of only a handful of costume designers so honored. Her other Broadway credits include
Bosoms and Neglect. In 2003 Kim received the 'Patricia Zipprodt Award for Innovative Costume Design' from the
Fashion Institute of Technology. In 2005 she received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Costume Design from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology. Kim died on December 23, 2016, at the age of 99. ==Family==