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Tuesday, March 03, 2026
‘You know when you’ve hit it – it’s a transformation’: Ruth E Carter on building the bold world of Sinners
Movies | The Guardian: Ruth E Carter’s costumes were a crucial part of establishing the identities of the two identical twins, both played by Michael B Jordan, in multi-Oscar-nominated Sinners. Particularly the hats. One brother, Stack, wore a red fedora. The other brother, Smoke, wore a blue newsboy flat cap.
4 comments:
Emily R
said...
I am absolutely in love with this movie. I recently rewatched it because of the awards season, and the entire production is just so well done. Not only do the actors take the audience into 1930s Mississppi but it would not be the movie without the technical execution that really sets the scene of the South in the 1930s. As in most costume design articles I have read, the design always has such close attention to detail for each character's costume and dynamic. Carter mentions the similarities and differences between the designs for Smoke and Stack, and it is just really interesting to hear how she went about specific details for each of the brothers. Along with the attention to detail, the research put behind them as well always shines through. Carter talks about the design for Annie and how the specific blue and the beads all relate to practicing hoodoo. I just love to hear about the designer's process when creating something like this.
Costume designer Ruth E. Carter’s comments specifically on Annie’s character design is really interesting. She talks of the stereotypical shawl and long skirt that always seems to convey an elder that deals in magic. I really appreciate Carter taking the time to actually design something new, rather than relying on these character archetypes. This is something that I feel is being explored much more in the media recently, as these archetypes are being challenged. We talked a bit about this in foundations, stating that these visual character clues are often meant to replace the work of actual character development. Instead of giving a character actions and emotions that flesh out their character, a movie might throw some cowboy boots on them and rely on an audience’s assumptions of a cowboy. By keeping Annie’s design consistent with the universe, while still having her own flair, Annie feels like an actual person and not some mysterious and fictional idea.
I loved the movie Sinners, I thought it was incredible story telling. Every detail of this movie was well thought out and worked to create this world. The costumes specifically, I thought were excellent. The way that the costume designer Ruth E. Carter was able to dress two identical twin characters so that they felt like individual people, and yet both were accurate to the time period, and didn’t clash with each other. I really enjoyed the part of this article where they dive further into the design choices made in the costume for the character Annie, who is a hoodoo priestess. This kind of character is often depicted in a very specific and stereotypical way, making them look very different from other characters, however for this movie, she was purposely dressed to align with what the other members of the community wear, which reflects how people like her in real life would have dressed.
I saw a TikTok just this morning that read, "I just know there's someone out there thinking Michael B Jordan has a twin just like I did when I watched Lindsey Lohan in The Parent Trap." In one of those cases, it was just good old-fashioned CG, and a dumb child's mind. In the other - Sinners - The complete storytelling of the outfits and mannerisms shifts Michael B Jordan and his CG double, lovingly coined Michael A Jordan by social media, into two entirely different people. But it wasn't just the two of them. The costumes of Ruth E Carter turned every on-screen actor into an entirely new person - one who emulated the southern jazz culture, the irish and italian mobs of the north, or an old Mississippi River Valley Voodoo woman. Carter deserves all the praise she gets, and all the awards she and this film are nominated for for her phenomenal work in the deep and rich storytelling of this film.
4 comments:
I am absolutely in love with this movie. I recently rewatched it because of the awards season, and the entire production is just so well done. Not only do the actors take the audience into 1930s Mississppi but it would not be the movie without the technical execution that really sets the scene of the South in the 1930s. As in most costume design articles I have read, the design always has such close attention to detail for each character's costume and dynamic. Carter mentions the similarities and differences between the designs for Smoke and Stack, and it is just really interesting to hear how she went about specific details for each of the brothers. Along with the attention to detail, the research put behind them as well always shines through. Carter talks about the design for Annie and how the specific blue and the beads all relate to practicing hoodoo. I just love to hear about the designer's process when creating something like this.
Costume designer Ruth E. Carter’s comments specifically on Annie’s character design is really interesting. She talks of the stereotypical shawl and long skirt that always seems to convey an elder that deals in magic. I really appreciate Carter taking the time to actually design something new, rather than relying on these character archetypes. This is something that I feel is being explored much more in the media recently, as these archetypes are being challenged. We talked a bit about this in foundations, stating that these visual character clues are often meant to replace the work of actual character development. Instead of giving a character actions and emotions that flesh out their character, a movie might throw some cowboy boots on them and rely on an audience’s assumptions of a cowboy. By keeping Annie’s design consistent with the universe, while still having her own flair, Annie feels like an actual person and not some mysterious and fictional idea.
I loved the movie Sinners, I thought it was incredible story telling. Every detail of this movie was well thought out and worked to create this world. The costumes specifically, I thought were excellent. The way that the costume designer Ruth E. Carter was able to dress two identical twin characters so that they felt like individual people, and yet both were accurate to the time period, and didn’t clash with each other. I really enjoyed the part of this article where they dive further into the design choices made in the costume for the character Annie, who is a hoodoo priestess. This kind of character is often depicted in a very specific and stereotypical way, making them look very different from other characters, however for this movie, she was purposely dressed to align with what the other members of the community wear, which reflects how people like her in real life would have dressed.
I saw a TikTok just this morning that read, "I just know there's someone out there thinking Michael B Jordan has a twin just like I did when I watched Lindsey Lohan in The Parent Trap." In one of those cases, it was just good old-fashioned CG, and a dumb child's mind. In the other - Sinners - The complete storytelling of the outfits and mannerisms shifts Michael B Jordan and his CG double, lovingly coined Michael A Jordan by social media, into two entirely different people. But it wasn't just the two of them. The costumes of Ruth E Carter turned every on-screen actor into an entirely new person - one who emulated the southern jazz culture, the irish and italian mobs of the north, or an old Mississippi River Valley Voodoo woman. Carter deserves all the praise she gets, and all the awards she and this film are nominated for for her phenomenal work in the deep and rich storytelling of this film.
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