Tagged: Costume design by Ruth E. Carter
Sinners: Michael B. Jordan’s Suits as the Smokestack Twins
Michael B. Jordan as Elias and Elijah Moore in Sinners (2025)
Vitals
Michael B. Jordan as the Smokestack Twins: Elias “Stack” Moore and Elijah “Smoke” Moore
Clarksdale, Mississippi, October 1932
Film: Sinners
Release Date: April 18, 2025
Director: Ryan Coogler
Costume Designer: Ruth E. Carter
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Sinners has been one of the biggest movies of 2025, with the highest opening weekend box office for an original film since Nope in 2022. Produced, written, and directed by Ryan Coogler, Sinners is set 93 years ago tonight from October 15 to 16, 1932 as the snappily dressed twin Moore brothers—recently returned from Chicago, where they were gunmen for the mob—have returned to their Mississippi Delta hometown to open a juke joint.
Smoke: Chicago ain’t shit but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of plantations.
Stack: And that’s why we came back home. Figure we might as well deal with the devil we know.
Denzel Washington as Malcolm X: Gray Suit and Astrakhan Hat for the Finale
Denzel Washington in Malcolm X (1992)
Vitals
Denzel Washington as Malcolm X, revolutionary minister and civil rights activist
New York City, February 1965
Film: Malcolm X
Release Date: November 18, 1992
Director: Spike Lee
Costume Designer: Ruth E. Carter
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Malcolm X was born 100 years ago today on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. A charismatic and complex voice in the civil rights movement, he became the subject of Malcolm X, Spike Lee’s sweeping 1992 biopic starring Denzel Washington in the title role.
Washington had first portrayed Malcolm a decade earlier in Laurence Holder’s one-act play When the Chickens Come Home to Roost was always Lee’s top choice for the film. His performance earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor—one of two Oscar nominations for Malcolm X, the other recognizing Ruth E. Carter’s striking costume design. Continue reading
Selma: David Oyelowo’s Navy Suit as Martin Luther King Jr.
David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma (2014)
Vitals
David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., iconic civil rights activist
Alabama, January to March 1965
Film: Selma
Release Date: December 25, 2014
Director: Ava DuVernay
Costume Designer: Ruth E. Carter
Background
Since 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been observed on the third Monday of each January since President Ronald Reagan signed Rep. Katie Hall’s proposed bill into law. Though King was actually born on January 15, 1929, “MLK Day” follows the pattern of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act that designates several American federal holidays to be permanently observed at the start of the workweek, like Presidents Day and Memorial Day.
Nominated for Best Picture at the 87th Academy Awards, Ava DuVernay’s 2014 drama Selma chronicles the events leading up to the famous Selma-to-Montgomery marches in March 1965, organized by nonviolent activists to protest the widespread denial of Black Americans exercising their constitutional voting rights. Continue reading
Yellowstone: Kevin Costner’s Western Ski Jacket
Kevin Costner as John Dutton on Yellowstone
Vitals
Kevin Costner as John Dutton, wealthy ranch patriarch and Montana Livestock Association commissioner
Western Montana, Fall 2017
Series: Yellowstone
Episodes:
– “Daybreak” (Episode 1.01, dir. Taylor Sheridan, aired 6/20/2018)
– “Kill the Messenger” (Episode 1.02, dir. Taylor Sheridan, aired 6/27/2018)
– “The Remembering” (Episode 1.06, dir. Taylor Sheridan, aired 8/1/2018)
– “A Monster Is Among Us” (Episode 1.07, dir. Taylor Sheridan, aired 8/8/2018)
– “A Thundering” (Episode 2.01, dir. Ed Bianchi, aired 6/19/2019)
– “New Beginnings” (Episode 2.02, dir. Ed Bianchi, aired 6/26/2019)
Creator: Taylor Sheridan & John Linson
Costume Designers: Ruth E. Carter & Brit Ellerman (Season 1) & Johnetta Boone (Season 2 onward)
Background
Tomorrow night, the Dutton family returns to TV with the fifth season premiere of Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan and John Linson’s modern-day Western series chronicling the fictional conflicts of a cattle ranch, an Indian reservation, and land developers against a lush Montana landscape.
The series centers around the widowed Yellowstone Ranch patriarch, John Dutton III (Kevin Costner), who puts considerable thought into his words and actions and whose primary motivation seems to be proudly maintaining his ranch to continue his family’s legacy to his now-adult children. Continue reading
Selma: John Lewis’ Iconic Raincoat
The real John Lewis in 1965 and Stephan James portraying Lewis in Selma (2014)
Vitals
Stephan James as John Lewis, civil rights activist and future congressman
Selma, Alabama, Spring 1965
Film: Selma
Release Date: December 25, 2014
Director: Ava DuVernay
Costume Designer: Ruth E. Carter
Background
On the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, today’s post celebrates the life and legacy of the late John Lewis, the prolific civil rights activist and longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives who had been an instrumental force in the fight for voter and racial equality.