She was noted for her collaborations with leading stage and opera directors such as Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli, as well as her early work on fashion illustration at French Vogue magazine.
For the French premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire, adapted by Jean Cocteau and starring Arletty as Blanche DuBois, Lila de Nobili designed a hot and sleazy New Orleans.
[6] De Nobili's opera, ballet and film designs in the late 1950s and early '60s include Jean Babilée's Sable (1956), Franco Zeffirelli's Mignon (1957), and Orphée (1958).
She designed sets and costumes for Raymond Rousseau's Ruy Blas (1960), Menotti's La Bohème (1960), Zeffirelli's Falstaff (1961), Aida (1962) and Rigoletto (1963) and Jean Babilee's Le Roi des Gourmets (1964).
[13] De Nobili designed the costumes, in collaboration with Rostislav Doboujinsky, for Raymond Rousseau's film Les Sorcières de Salem (1957) (from The Crucible by Arthur Miller) with screenplay by Jean-Paul Sartre and starring Simone Signoret,[14][15][16] and for Michel Boisrond's Amours Célèbres (or Famous Love Affairs, 1961) also with Simone Signoret, Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon, co-designing the costumes with Monique Dunan and Georges Wakhevitch).