Renie was born Irene Brouillet in Republic, Washington in 1903. She developed an interest in theater, film, and art at a young age, and as a teenager designed sets for her high school drama club. Her father was a travelling salesman who eventually moved the family to the Los Angeles area, where Renie studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and majored in design at Chouinard Art Institute. After completing her studies, she designed stage sets for Fanchon and Marco. She married actor Truman Van Dyke in 1927, giving birth to their son that same year, though the two divorced a couple of years later. By the 1930s, she was working as a sketch artist for costume designers at major studios, first at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she sketched with Edward Stevenson for André-ani, then at Paramount, where she and Adele Balkan created sketches for Mitchell Leisen films.

In 1936 she became a costume designer for RKO, where she remained for over a decade. Her diverse work for the studio included films in the MEXICAN SPITFIRE series starring Lupe Velez, THE SAINT series, and THE FALCON series of films. She was known for her designs for Ginger Rogers, most notably for Rogers’ Academy Award winning performance in KITTY FOYLE (1940), as well as HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME (1938), TOM, DICK AND HARRY (1941), and TENDER COMRADE (1943). Other notable credits at RKO include STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940), THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943), CAT PEOPLE (1942), and THE LONG NIGHT (1947). In 1950 she went to Twentieth Century-Fox, where she worked with Charles Le Maire, with whom she shared Academy Award nominations for Best Costume Design (Black and White) for THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE BROKER (1951) and THE PRESIDENT’S LADY (1953), though Renie was reportedly responsible for all of the design work on both films. Her other credits for the studio include WAIT TILL THE SUN SHINES, NELLIE (1952), as well as the costumes for Marilyn Monroe in LOVE NEST (1951), AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL (1951), and LET’S MAKE IT LEGAL (1951).

In 1953, Renie was among the nine costume designers who established the Costume Designers Guild, and she went on to serve on the Guild’s Executive Board. The following year, she left Fox to work as a freelance designer, and she took on projects outside of the film industry. She spent a year overseeing the design and creation of 10,000 costumes for Disneyland employees before the park’s opening in 1955. At the same time, she was hired to design the costumes for Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies. An ice-skating enthusiast herself, Renie loved the job and continued to design for the Ice Follies throughout the 1950s. As a freelance designer for film, her notable credits include THE THREE FACES OF EVE (1957), THE GIRL MOST LIKELY (1958), and THE BIG FISHERMAN (1959), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design (Color). She was also active with the Costume Council, the Fashion Group, and the Art Directors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 1961, Renie was one of three costume designers hired for CLEOPATRA (1963), along with Irene Sharaff, who designed all of Elizabeth Taylor’s gowns, and Vittorio Nino Novarese, who designed for the male characters. Renie was responsible for costuming all the women apart from Taylor, which required historical research to accurately clothe Cleopatra’s Greek and Egyptian handmaidens. The following year, Sharaff, Novarese, and Renie shared the Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Color) for their work on the film. Research into historical and contemporary clothing of other cultures was a passion for Renie, particularly the ways in which climate, religion, and industry informed what people wore. Throughout her life, she travelled extensively and collected articles of clothing, which she often incorporated into lectures she gave on cultural clothing at UCLA and throughout the United States. Following her success with CLEOPATRA, Renie went on to design costumes for such films as BEACH PARTY (1963), THE SAND PEBBLES (1966), THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE (1968), and THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE (1968), among many others. She also ventured into television, designing costumes for the television movies FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN (1966) and HAYWIRE (1980) as well as episodes of HE & SHE, THE MAGICAL WORLD OF DISNEY, and SPACE. She received her fifth and final Academy Award nomination for CARAVANS (1978), and her last major film credit was BODY HEAT (1981), for which she designed Kathleen Turner’s wardrobe. Renie died in 1992.