Ruth Carter

Costume Designer

Ruth E. Carter is the 2019 Academy Award winner in Costume Design for Marvel’s Black Panther, making history as the first African-American to win in the category. Carter wows audiences and dazzles critics alike with Afro Future looks that empower the female form and turn a superhero into an African King.
Inspired by African tribal wear, Carter fuses traditional and contemporary while incorporating technology to deliver fashion and function, creating such authenticity and ownership for the actors, characters, and viewers, cementing her as one of the preeminent voices and experts on Afro aesthetics.

Experience Carter’s recent costume design brilliance in the most anticipated sequel and highest opening for a streaming film, “COMING 2 AMERICA,” starring Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall and directed by Craig Brewer on Amazon Prime. Thirty years later, Carter honors the memorable and grandiose vision of the first film and, for the sequel, imbues Afro Future design elements to create the majestic beauty and splendor of African royalty. Leaving the viewer in complete awe. Collaborating with 40 designers from around the world, Carter and her team transform Zamunda into the fashion capitol of the world.

A career spanning more than three decades in theater, cinema, and television, Carter’s depth of artistry, flowing with her creative instincts, passion for culture and history, empathy for people, capacity for research, eye for detail, and ability to deliver the director’s vision while infusing her own signature, makes her one of the most sought after and renowned costume designers in the world.

Earning her over forty film credits, including two Academy Award nominations for “MALCOLM X” (1993) and “AMISTAD” (1998), an Emmy nomination for the reboot of the
television mini-series “ROOTS” (2016), and the second Costume Designer and first Black Costume Designer to receive a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (2021).
Ruth Carter’s costumes tell stories so intriguing and unforgettable they influence music, fashion, culture, and film-making and help us to understand ourselves better. Carter has collaborated with a myriad of directors and visionaries beginning with Spike Lee in “SCHOOL DAZE,” and working with him on 12 films including “DO THE RIGHT THING,” which is archived in the Library of Congress, “MALCOLM X, "MO BETTER BLUES," and “CHI-RAQ.”