Ruth E. Carter’s resumé is extensive. The costume designer — best known for her work in films such as Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, and Selma — uses clothing to complement narratives. By incorporating styles and aesthetics that are otherwise ignored or abused, her work upends stereotype, lifting and reflecting the multivalence that blackness is constantly denied.
In 1997’s B*A*P*S, for example, there’s a scene in which two women — Nisi, played by Halle Berry, and Mickey, played Natalie Desselle-Reid — sit on a plane. Nisi reads an etiquette book, while Mickey scans a magazine. “Do you think we overdid it with our hair?” Mickey asks. Without hesitation, Nisi responds, “Nope.” Both women are dressed exquisitely in suits made of creamsicle latex and leopard print. Like crowns, their hair is piled high and licked with diamonds. To the ignorant eye, Halle and Natalie’s characters could be described as “tacky” or “ghetto” but with Carter’s design, they are eager, limitless women.
Throughout the course of her career, Carter has sifted through histories — real and imagined — with a rare kind of grace and precision. In 1992, she humanized the legacy of Malcolm X with a simple white thobe. A year later, she transformed Angela Bassett into Tina Turner, tailoring a creamy pant suit into a symbol of power, defiance, and grace. Carter has moved through time with elegance and empathy, extending the same thoughtfulness to Mende captives from the 19th century to a modern-day news anchor and her Louboutins.
Some of her more recent creations will appear in Marvel’s upcoming Black Panther, a movie that has set records even before its release. Each movie trailer and editorial that shows glimpses of Wakanada has been met with viral acclaim, in no small part because of Carter's brilliant costume work. Over the phone, we spoke about fashion and race, inspiration and history, and creating the power of Black Panther.
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