My most anticipated thing at WonderCon didn’t happen till the final day, but it was truly awesome to get to speak with Ruth Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther. I spent two feverish weeks working on this W’Kabi cosplay so that I could interview her in it and as you can see that it came together! It was a delight to speak with Ruth and dig into her process of bringing Black Panther to life via the costumes.
My first question is, why the blankets [like the one I’m wearing]?
Because Ryan asked to spend some time in Africa when they hired him. He went to the Basotho nation and he stayed there for some time. He lived there for a little while he got into…he felt like he couldn’t write a story about an African nation had he not been there. He fell in love with these blankets, it was his idea. We bought about 200 of them from the nation and they were very stiff, they didn’t have the pliability that we were looking for when we were shooting them. We had to shave them down with an electric shaver and that took about an hour and a half.
Per blanket?
Yeah. So we realized that wasn’t going to work. Eventually we saw that there was a synthetic fiber and a natural fiber in the blankets, so we burned them. We burned away the natural fiber and kept the synthetic, which thinned them down. We were out the back of the studio lot burning Basotho blankets.
Obviously we first saw Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, you didn’t work on the movie. What was it like updating the suit?
His new habit was supposed to be more technologically advanced, simpler. Shuri laughs at him when she says “oh wait, I see danger. Let me put on my helmet.” The nanotech was the driving force behind the new habit. Because of the nanotech, the suit itself had to be very simple and very thin. It still needed to have a texture, but now it would have a little bit more direct meaning. The Civil War suit is magnificent, the way the vibranium wraps around that suit is very dynamic. But it was a very difficult costume to create because of the dynamics of how it wove the weaving. The new suit was constructed a lot simpler. I think there’s an argument for liking one over the other because they’re very different.
I know that these costumes have to be able to move, people have to be able to move in them. They also have to look great on whatever set they’re on. How much interaction do you have as the costume designer with the other departments?
We’re like a family. They like coming to my house; my house is full of all kinds of things for them to see. The stunt coordinator came to my office many, many times. We make prototypes, like the red dress Okoye wears for example. We nailed down the concept of the dress immediately and began to craft it. We created a prototype that a stunt girl wore on top of the car. They crafted a rig and went out in the parking lot and drove around at like 60 mph. We’re standing there like we’re testing a new car but we’re actually testing a new dress! I kept wanting it to fly up higher and I kept asking VFX, “are you going to add more to the back of it?” When they came back from Busan, they said they didn’t need to, it did everything it was supposed to do. We work very close together, especially Hannah Bechler, the production designer. I need to see what Shuri’s lab is going to look like because it informs what to put on the cast and background.
There are so many extras and background to fill out the world of Wakanda. How do you design those costumes?
I was obsessed. Wakanda had certain parameters. I didn’t want to see too much African cloth because African cloth was appropriated. Afropunk was a big help, because the movement was going and people understand it. I didn’t want just the anarchy of Afropunk, I also wanted the elegance of mixing modern shapes like Issey Miyake, and Gareth Pugh, Rick Owens, and Stella McCartney, with the African. In a way it keeps it fresh because I feel like every time I look at modern fashion it feels new.
Speaking of, one of the things I really loved is the casual wear and silhouettes like Killmonger’s drop crotch pants and T’Challa’s CIA base jacket. Was there an approach to that?
Yeah, T’Challa and Killmonger are opposites but they are of the same royal blood. So even though Killmonger, we see him in the museum in a jean jacket and pants, his boots are by Balmain, his jacket is Amuri. The pieces are incredibly made and crafted and they are royal in their own way, it’s just kind of undercover. With T’CHalla, because he was the Prince and now he’s the King, he’s like kid who went to private school in your neighborhood. He’s a little more refined, he’s got better clothes, he dresses to his station in life. That’s how we came up with the idea.