Sylbert began her career as a costume designer on the contemporary New York films "The Tiger Makes Out" (1967) and "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). She worked on the latter with then-brother-in-law, production designer Richard Sylbert, and again teamed with him on Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (1974) for which she created the stylish period costumes and "Shampoo" (1975). She has worked also in association with then husband, production designer/art director Paul Sylbert on his directorial and screenwriting debut, "The Steagle" (1971) and then on "Bad Company" (1972) and as a visual consultant on "Mikey and Nicky" (1976).
In 1978 Sylbert left active designing to become a production executive, first as vice president of special projects for Warner Bros., then as a production vice president at United Artists and since 1982 as an independent producer in association with Goldie Hawn for whom she has produced "Swing Shift", "Protocol" (both 1984), "Wildcats" (1986), "Overboard" (1987) and "Deceived" (1991). After severing her ties with Hawn, Sylbert went on to co-executive produce the award-winning made-for-cable biopic "Truman" (HBO, 1995).