Ruth Carter has been creating her vision of Afrofutures through films since the late 1980s, and now she’s bringing that vision to Detroit.
The Oscar-winning costume designer’s new exhibit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History opens on Tuesday, Oct. 10, featuring some of her most famous work from popular films.
Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design includes pieces Carter created for Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which won her two consecutive Oscars, along with work from Ava DuVernay’s Selma and Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing.
Eddie Murphy’s royal suit from Coming 2 America, Fly Guy’s platform boots and yellow pimp suit from I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, and the beaded leather uniform worn by the Dora Milaje in Black Panther are all on display.
“You can travel all over the whole continent of Africa on this one costume,” Carter tells members of the media about the Dora Milaje warriors’ costume at a preview event. The red uniforms and beadwork are inspired by Kenya’s Masai tribe, their metal ring collars are reminiscent of those worn by the Ndebele women of South Africa, and a raised print on their legs and arms are an homage to the scarification practiced by many tribes.
“We’re trying to redirect the images of beauty from other places so that we can see more layers of beauty,” she says.
The suits are fascinating on screen, but seeing all the small details in person is even more awe-inspiring.
Carter became the first African American woman to win an Oscar for costume design in 2019 for her work on Black Panther, earning Marvel Studios its first Oscar. She further cemented her legacy by becoming the first Black woman to win two Academy Awards and the first person to win for both a feature film and its sequel with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
This may be her claim to fame when she finally received overdue recognition, but Carter has worked on many notable films like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X where she landed her first Oscar nomination, Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, and the 2016 adaptation of Roots.
She got her start on Spike Lee’s School Daze in 1988 and has made costumes for several of his films. When she made her way to the Oscar stage in 2019 in a sparkling blue gown and robe fit for a queen, acceptance speech in tow, she says she felt a bit of sadness when she saw Lee sitting in the audience. During her crowning moment, and despite their long history, the two had been fighting over “something stupid,” she explains to Metro Times.
“I thought, why should we be fighting when this man started my whole career and here I am on stage in front of him getting the Oscar,” she says. So she said in her acceptance speech, “‘I hope this makes you proud, Spike,’ like, snap out of it. Spike is a complicated guy. It’s his way or the highway… He has said to me he’s happy I’m finally getting my flowers, but he could have given me my flowers… We were waiting for him to say, ‘Ruth Carter is my costume designer. This is the person who made this happen.’”
She says it took so long for a Black woman to win in the costume design category because designers often aren’t recognized for the work they bring to the screen.
“I don’t think he really knew how to give me my flowers,” she says of her relationship with Lee. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re like brother and sister… but I think he came out of an era where we were putting directors on a pedestal all on their own. Social media opened up the behind-the-scenes and showed us everybody who is working to make it happen. Even though he appreciates us and loves us, he likes to be the fearless leader. We’re carrying him on the rickshaw and we’re fanning him, and that’s just the way it is,” she says with a laugh.
Carter’s skillset is vast. The zoot suits she made for Malcolm X, Black Panther costumes, and Brooklyn street swag in Do The Right Thing are all part of the Afrofuture universe she helps create on and off screen.
“When Spike wanted to make Do The Right Thing, he really wanted to make a protest film to address issues in the community,” she says. “ I just felt like Spike was embracing his own Afrofuture with wanting to embrace the community story and move us forward in film with the images that were not being portrayed in Hollywood movies.”
She adds, “The same withAva DuVernay, on the set of Selma. She was looking into her own Afrofuture as a publicist who wanted to be a director who was a writer, and she did it. I’m inspired by that and it’s my own version of Afrofuture. When I came to Wakanda with all of these experiences behind me, I go, ‘I know how to put this Afrofuture world together,’ because I saw the layers of how we came this far, how we got here. I think about Brooklyn and the African diaspora, how we like to dress, and Malcolm X and zoot suits. I can translate all of that into Wakanda.”
Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design is on display at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History until March 31, 2024. For more info, see thewright.org.
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