Ruth E. Carter Steps Into the Spotlight. In her 30 years in film, ... Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times. To transform David Oyelowo into Martin Luther King, Jr., for Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” she made the actor’s shirt collars a little tight—“so that he would have the same fleshy roll that King did,” she told me.Carter, who was raised by her mother in Springfield, Massachusetts, briefly considered acting but turned to costume design as a student at Hampton University. A visual storyteller and frequent Spike Lee collaborator, Ruth E. Carter won an Oscar for her Afrofuturistic costume design for "Black Panther."
For her efforts, she has been lauded as one of the essential visual storytellers of Afrofuturism.It’s only recently that Carter’s work has received this level of public attention—a travelling exhibition of her work, “Heroes & Sheroes,” just opened at the Heinz History Center, in Pittsburgh—but her film career has spanned three decades and sixty film and TV projects. Produced by The New Yorker and WNYC Studios In one photo, a model wears the dress that Anna Paquin wore as Isabella II, the slave-owning Spanish queen in “Amistad”; her hot-pink nail polish is an electric anachronism. Cas Holman: Design for Play 46m. (Carter: a black Ruth Carter and Cynthia Erivo on Clothes, Culture and Self-ExpressionRuth Carter (left) and Cynthia Erivo shot at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles Hotel at Beverly Hills on Oct. 27, 2019.Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett in “Black Panther” (2018), for which Carter won the Oscar for best costume design.Erivo adapted the yellow trousers she wore as Celie in “The Color Purple,” seen here in a performance during the 2016 Tony Awards, into her own style.Carter accepting the Oscar for best costume design for “Black Panther” at the 91st Academy Awards earlier this year.Erivo wore a Valentino gown and bejeweled eyebrows to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala last year. Ruth E. has 26 jobs listed on their profile.
One evening, she met a young filmmaker named Spike Lee. The New Yorker Presents: the 2019 Brodies. Dresses worn onstage by the girl group in “Sparkle,” the 2012 remake of the 1976 cult film of the same name.
Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” is a rare thing: a big-budget superhero … Her costumes have brought to life such figures from black history as Joseph Cinqué, the West African leader of a slave-ship revolt, played by Djimon Hounsou in Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad,” and Malcolm X, played by Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s bio-pic. She kept some treasured pieces at home, but many of her costumes were lost or sold, and an archive that she maintained at Lee’s studio in Brooklyn was dispersed. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards and an Emmy. Ruth E. Carter is “lauded as one of the essential visual storytellers of Afrofuturism.” — The New Yorker “Costume design is somewhat of a mystery to people, and this is an opportunity to learn about the costume designer as an artist and a storyteller.” All . “Exploring our past in our present.” A pair of Nike Air Revolutions like the ones worn by Radio Raheem in “Do the Right Thing”; purses and starburst earrings for Coretta Scott King, in “Selma”; and Tina Turner’s pumps, from “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”Throughout her career, the costume designer for “Black Panther” has created visions of black identity, past and future.The zoot suit and hat that were worn by Denzel Washington in “Malcolm X,” and replicas of the dress and tights that Rosie Perez wore in her opening-credit dance sequence in “Do the Right Thing.”From “Selma,” a beaded dress for Coretta Scott King and a dark suit for Martin Luther King, Jr.T’Challa’s Black Panther suit, from Ryan Coogler’s movie, and Carter herself wearing a replica of Radio Raheem’s knuckle ring.Replicas of the Dodgers jersey (with Jackie Robinson’s number) worn by Mookie, Spike Lee’s character in “Do the Right Thing,” and of Radio Raheem’s “Bed-Stuy Do or Die” T-shirt. She has worked with Lee on fourteen films, including “Do the Right Thing,” his barn-burning commentary on racial tensions in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She realized her vision with the help of an international team of researchers, buyers, tailors, beaders, and engineers, and by exploring the possibilities of 3-D-printing technology.