Ruth E. Carter is the first black women to win 2 Oscar awards for costume design and the most nominated-awards black women in history (Sun, 2023). Through her world-wide recognition for her exceptional costumes, she opened doors for other black designers to enter the film industry. Over three decades in films, she has created costumes for numerous films and collaborated with prominent directors like Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg, Ava DuVernay, and Ryan Coogler (Carter, 2025). All of these costumes hold a strong attachment to African cultures and its pop styles and ideas. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022, Ruth E Carter once more makes history that gave Marvel their first Oscar recognition.
As a proud black women working three decades in the creative industry, Carter feel she has the responsibility to widen the path for more color people to enrich the film industry, as today color people are very not presented enough in this white-dominated industry. "Spike lee was very much aware of where we were in cinema and he wanted to put more people of colour behind the camera, there was not enough representation, we are not seeing our community presently in other films, so we were making our films that represent who we were, how we dress, how we look" stated Carter (ACMI, 2025).
Her strong commitment to brought Africa cultures to the world, can be seen particularly from her 'Afrofuturism' costumes in the black panther movie. For Carter, 'afrofuturism' is utilizing technology with imagination and self-expression to promotes a value for Black American, Africans, and Indigenous people to use their creativity and opportunity without restricted of slavery and colonialism. In her 'afrofuturism' concept, Carter combines traditional and contemporary by incorporating technology to deliver both the aesthetic and also the functionality of a costume (the Wright, 2023).
I was really attracted to Cater's concept of 'afrofuturism' and her outstanding vision of combining a very contrast idea; primitive tribe cultures and futuristic design. Her task to design for the black panther movie was far from easy as she needs to reimagine the unique cultures of primeval African tribes into a futuristic superhero costume which the setting take the time of decades in the future. This requires Carter to vision how people dress in years ahead. Out of thousands of cultures and tribes in Africa, Ryan Coogler and Hannah Beachler selected 12 tribes that the costumes would be inspired by (see fig 1). And from here, Carter starts to breakdown the inspiration and develop the tribal cultures into an advanced and modernized costume. As Carter explains, "For example the Zulu tribe for the royal family and how we could combine color theory with what we knew about the tribe and then show them as a forward thinking nation that had vibranium and technology, we couldn't leave them as a indigenous look, we had to elevate it and move it forward" (ACMI, 2025).
Color theory also play a big role especially in costume design, in order to present a clear and consistent aesthetic throughout the film. "There were color theory in all of the design, the water tribe with their green, the warrior with their red (see fig 2), and queen Ramona with her 'purple' royal color (see fig 3), we need to understand the colour theory" stated Carter (ACMI, 2025). On the movie, the underwater tribes called 'Talokan' was inspired by the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mesoamerica, and the costumes relied on the Mayan culture elements and the underwater environment like coral, fish and bones (see fig 4)(Finney, 2022).
So, all the character's costume in the movie have its own relation to African and other tribes's primeval clothing, which then further developed into a modernized costume that depicted society with advanced technology. For Carter, it was an amazing experience especially because it was her first time to design for super hero film, "That was the joy of putting it all together, we could have our tribal base and then we could elevate these stories into this greater aesthetic of Wakanda" (ACMI, 2025).
From researching Carter's journey behind her success as the costume designer for the black panther movie, I learned the importance of research and deep exploration before designing a costume. Carter credits the success of her design to her research, which she describes as a "slow and patient process which cannot be rushed"(the Wright, 2024). She stressed the crucial role that research holds, in order to fully understand and honor the cultures presented in the film. As she explains,"there's a reason why overalls are worn on field work, and there's a reason why tribal beading was so intricate, so when you understand what you're looking at you can actually communicate more with your design process." (ACMI, 2025). According to Rogers (2023) to seek the authentic pieces for inspiration in the making of black panther costume, Carter had a shopper who went all over the African continent, therefore when her team recreated those pieces, they would have the original object as a reference.
This makes me reflect back to my own research process of AP2 project. I realize I haven't done enough research to be able to gather many inspiration and ideas, therefore it limit my creativity and vision of ways to incorporate Indonesian elements into my national costume. Because Indonesia has hundreds of cultures from different provinces and tribes, so it was a challenge for me to narrow it down to a few cultures I will include on my project. But on the other hand, the current design that I'm working on which I only focus on clothing from a particular province in Indonesia, doesn't really present Indonesia as a country with unique and abundant cultures, therefore I will need to go back to my mood board and truly consider what is going to be my main inspiration or reference.
Reference list
ACMI – The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (2025). Ruth E. Carter – a career in costumes. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVhenbc7f-o [Accessed 7 May 2025].
Carter, R.E. (2025). About. [online] Ruth E. Carter. Available at: https://www.ruthecarter.com/about [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Finney, A. (2022). ‘We couldn’t go as soft as we did in the first film,’ says Black Panther costume designer Ruth. E. Carter. [online] dezeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2022/12/08/wakanda-forever-black-panther-costume-design-ruth-carter-interviews/ [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Rogers, K. (2023). The art of costuming the Black experience in American cinema. [online] www.cnn.com. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/05/style/ruth-e-carter-black-panther-costumes-cnnphotos/ [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Sun, M. (2023). Ruth E Carter becomes first Black woman to win two Oscars. The Guardian. [online] 13 Mar. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/12/ruth-e-carter-oscars-win-black-panther [Accessed 8 May 2025].
the Wright (2024). Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design | The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. [online] www.thewright.org. Available at: https://www.thewright.org/exhibitions/ruth-e-carter-afrofuturism-costume-design [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Bibliography
Brooks, M. (2023). Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design. [online] North Carolina Museum of Art. Available at: https://ncartmuseum.org/ruth-e-carter-afrofuturism-in-costume-design/ [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Mosley, T. (2023). An Oscar-winning costume designer explains how clothes ‘create a mood’. [online] NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156555360/black-panther-wakanda-forever-costume-design-ruth-e-carter [Accessed 8 May 2025].
Vanity Fair (2020). Black Panther’s Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter Breaks Down Her Iconic Costumes | Vanity Fair. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmvBrpkgBF0 [Accessed 8 May 2025].
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