Inspired by African tribal wear, Carter fuses traditional and contemporary design while incorporating technology to deliver fashion and function, creating authenticity and ownership for the actors, characters, and viewers, cementing her as one of the preeminent voices and experts on Afrofuturism, African American fashion, and cultural storytelling.

Experience Carter’s costume design brilliance in Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which earned her a second Academy Award, and Ryan Coogler’s critically acclaimed Sinners (2025), starring Michael B. Jordan, which earned her a fifth Academy Award nomination, along with BAFTA and Critics Choice Award nominations and a 2026 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Costume Design. Her recent work also includes The Pickup (2025), starring Eddie Murphy and Keke Palmer, and Coming 2 America, starring Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall and directed by Craig Brewer for Amazon Prime Video. Thirty years after the original film, Carter honored its memorable and grandiose vision while incorporating Afrofuturist design elements to create the majestic beauty and splendor of African royalty, leaving viewers in awe. Collaborating with 40 designers from around the world, Carter and her team transformed Zamunda into the fashion capital of the world, earning the 2022 Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film.

With a career spanning more than four decades in theater, cinema, and television, Carter’s depth of artistry, creative instincts, passion for culture and history, empathy for people, capacity for research, eye for detail, and ability to deliver a director’s vision while infusing her own signature style have made her one of the most sought-after and renowned costume designers in Hollywood.

With more than 50 feature film credits, Carter has earned five Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Malcolm X (1993), Amistad (1998), and Sinners (2026), as well as an Emmy nomination for the television miniseries Roots (2016). In 2021, she became the second costume designer and first Black costume designer to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Carter also received the Costume Designers Guild Career Achievement Award in 2019, recognizing her groundbreaking contributions to costume design and the entertainment industry.

Ruth Carter’s costumes tell stories so intriguing and unforgettable that they influence music, fashion, culture, and filmmaking while helping us 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 preserved in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, Malcolm X, Mo’ Better Blues, and Chi-Raq.

She joined forces with Robert Townsend to make the iconic The Five Heartbeats, with Keenen Ivory Wayans in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and with the late John Singleton in the gritty Baby Boy and Rosewood. Her breadth of knowledge in African American history and art was sought after by Steven Spielberg and Debbie Allen for Amistad. Thereafter, she continued to present outstanding work for period ensemble films in Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Ava DuVernay’s Selma, and Reginald Hudlin’s Marshall.

Over the years, Carter has designed costumes for some of Hollywood’s most legendary actors, bringing iconic characters to life across film and television. Her collaborations with Angela Bassett include portraying Betty Shabazz in Malcolm X, Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It, Stella in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Queen Ramonda in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She also dressed the late Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall in Marshall and as T’Challa in the Black Panther films, as well as Halle Berry in Jungle Fever and B.A.P.S. Carter has worked with Samuel L. Jackson on eight films, from his portrayal of Mister Señor Love Daddy in Do the Right Thing to Shaft, and has collaborated with Eddie Murphy on numerous projects, including Coming 2 America, The Pickup, and Dolemite Is My Name. Her 1970s-inspired costume designs for Murphy’s portrayal of entertainer Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name earned her the 2020 Critics Choice Award for Best Costume Design.

Carter also created the costumes and looks for the pilot episodes of Seinfeld and In Living Color, and for the first season of the wildly popular Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner and created by Taylor Sheridan. Her upcoming projects include The Thomas Crown Affair, Snoop, and Black Panther 3, continuing her work across some of Hollywood’s most anticipated productions.

Carter is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is a founder of the Mildred Blount Scholarship Fund, created to assist BIPOC costume designers. Her celebrated costume designs have been featured in exhibitions, including at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Atlanta, Georgia, showcasing her influence on fashion, African American history, and cinematic storytelling. Carter and her creative process can also be seen in Netflix’s original documentary series Abstract: The Art of Design, Season 2.

A sought-after keynote speaker and guest lecturer, Carter regularly shares insights on her extraordinary career, creative process, breaking barriers in Hollywood, diversity in the entertainment industry, and the power of representation through costume design. Ruth E. Carter works in partnership with APB Speakers for speaking engagements worldwide. Read Less ^