Oscar Wins
Costume Design
Black Panther
Costume Design
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Oscar Nominations
Costume Design
Malcolm X
Costume Design
Amistad
Ruth Carter has stepped onto the stage and into Oscars history not once, but twice.
"When no other Black costume designer had won, I thought, 'I'm here. This could be me,'" she tells the Academy. "Once I received my first nomination, I was the one to tell the press that I was the first. I was really proud of that, and I realized then that I was carving a niche for myself and for everybody else."
Or as Carter said onstage while accepting her first Oscar for Black Panther, "This has been a long time coming."
Carter's first nomination came at the 65th Academy Awards for Spike Lee's Malcolm X. That year, she made her own dress - "and I vowed I would never do that again," she says, laughing.
More then two decades later, Black Panther filmmaker Ryan Coogler approached her "He went to see Malcolm X with his dad when he was a little boy," the designer recalls. "And he said he remembers, as a kid, seeing the costumes on the screen."
"Wow. I got it," Carter said, statuette in hand. She looked out into the audience and one of the first people she saw was Lee. (The director also became an Oscar winner that night, winning for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman.) Carter hadn't written him into her acceptance speech, but felt compelled to speak directly to him, off the cuff: "Spike Lee, thank you for my start. I hope this makes you proud."
Whereas releasing Black Panther had felt like a worldwide celebration, even in its success, celebrating Black Panther: Wakanda Forever felt more poignant in the wake of Chadwick Boseman's passing. And in Carter's personal life, her mother Mabel died on March 8, 2023, days before the 95th Oscars.
"I was less concerned about all of the little things like I was before. 'Oh, my shoes. Oh, my dress. I'm going to be in front of a camera, and people are going to be looking at me,'" Carter explains. "I could take the stage and own that moment. It felt like I had this opportunity to say something that was very personal and emotional."
"Nice to see you again," she said, holding her Oscar aloft. "Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the superhero that is a Black woman. She endures. She loves. She overcomes. She is every woman in this film. She is my mother. This past week, Mable Carter became an ancestor. This film prepared me for this moment. Chadwick, please take care of Mom."
- Accepting her second Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards
"We started in this industry to make a change, and we did it. We made a difference," Carter says. "We changed the way that people told stories about African Americans. I'm super proud that, over the course of my career, I feel like I achieved that."
Carter usually has her Oscars on display in her Los Angeles home; however, the statuettes also go on the road with her.
"Right now, they're sitting by the TV," Carter says. "When I'm watching my favorite movies and they're sitting there watching them with me, I look at them and I really feel like they represent that I am a part of this wonderful medium of storytelling. Their place in my life has really solidified who I am to this industry. It's nice sitting by the TV with the two Oscars and enjoying other people's work, and thinking about who I'd like to work with in my future. I feel like I'm an industry leader."
