Clarks Originals just released, and more than likely – by now sold out a limited edition Black Panther version of its Trigenic Evo shoe. Featuring embossed rubber deatails, silver thread stitching, and a black on black leather design the shoe is as sleek as the King of Wakanda himself.
To celebrate the release, The Fader magazine teamed up with Clarks Originals for a launch event at their Soho NYC store. The highlight of the night was the featured guest the costume designer for Black Panther, Ruth E. Carter.
Ruth E. Carter’s list of work reads like a whose who of Black story telling. From working on School Daze to Whats Love Got To Do With It to Malcolm X to Amistad to Black Dynamite and on into her current film Black Panther Ruth Carter has been a part of the tapestry of the Afro-Diaspora on film. I got the chance to pick her brain before she took the floor at the event.
Comic Attack: So what inspired your designs for the Dora Milaje.
Ruth E. Carter: I was inspired by many tribes, ancient tribes, [throughout] Africa. The Himba tribe was an inspiration, I love that they took the leather and stretched the edges and decorated it with studded and rings. So the back of the Dora Milaje back skirt is basically a Himba inspired piece. The front tabard is inspired by many cultures in Africa that use the intricate beading work like the Turkana, so I wanted the tabard to be a spiritual piece for them, I wanted the uniform as a whole to be something that if a Dora were to retire she could hand down her suit. So it needed to have a relevance and a spiritual connection.
The leather wraps of the suit are hand made in the tradition of the South African leather craft makers. When I was on Roots (2016) we had these leather belts that were hand made in South African and so when we were making the Dora Milajie I presented to my crafts people these elements and we spun off of it.
Comic Attack: What brought you on to Black Panther?
Ruth E. Carter: Ryan Coogler. I was one of a list of people being interviewed and I wasn’t a comic book fan but I knew the comics, my brothers read all the superhero comics I was kind of a Little Lotta, Archie comics fan but I brushed up on the Black Panther legend and I created a Dropbox of images that I presented to Ryan. It just so happened that we had some similar images that he had collected as well. So there was like a meeting of minds. Then we started to talk about other things that weren’t Black Panther. He told me that when he was a little boy his father took him to go see Malcolm X. He never forgot the experience of seeing that film and how honored he was for me to be in the room with him, and I was honored to be asked to come in to design such an important film. I think we had a nice synergy in that meeting, I felt good when I left the meeting but you never know. It wasn’t for another month that they called me and told me I got the job.
Comic Attack: How do you feel about cosplayers recreating your the looks that you created for the film?
Ruth E. Carter: Its an honor to see, especially the children dressed as the Black Panther or dressed as the Dora Milajie. I think we need a superhero in our community and now we have one so cosplayers something real that looks like them that they don’t have to worry that they’re not the right skin color for the uniform, for the costume – they can really embody the ideal and compete on the same level as all the other cosplayers.
Comic Attack: So for the future where do you think the look will go for the next film idea wise.
Ruth E. Carter: I have no idea its up to Marvel. We created a world it can actually go in any direction from here so I have no idea its kind of exciting to dream about it but we’ll have to see.
– Kaos Blac
