Honoring the history-making costume designer

The SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion and Film in Atlanta will be honoring Ruth E. Carter after bring the first Black person to win an Oscar for costume design for her work with the Marvel sensation “Black Panther.” The museum exhibit will honor Carter featuring her designs in the new exhibit.

Carter has worked on 66 television and film projects over the course of her career with a collection of her work featured in the new exhibit. The costume designer disclosed that being featured in a gallery exhibit is on her bucket list and couldn’t be more excited for the grand opening.

Carter says that she felt the excitement for the exhibit shortly after the gallery came to collect her first sewing machine that brought back memories of her first designs. One of her first designs was a patchwork blazer made with scraps of cut up jeans but she didn’t want to wear it so she gave it to her neighbor who wore it all the time.

Carter realized she wanted to become a costume designer during her sophomore year at Hampton University after not getting cast for the play and the director suggested she work with the costume department. After researching costume designers, she wanted to learn more while majoring in theatre but there was no costume designer teacher or curriculum leading Carter to learn on her own.

Carter remembers her first paying costume designer job at the Los Angeles Theater Center (LATC) for only $2 per hour but realized a majority of theatre positions are voluntary and she didn’t want to disparage the LATC. She first realized that being a costume designer could be a career when she started getting accolades for classic school productions including “The Sty of the Blind Pig” and “A Raisin in the Sun.”

This museum exhibit is a dream of a lifetime for Carter and the exhibit grand opening is December 17.

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