This week, Ruth E. Carter made history by becoming the most-nominated Black woman at the Oscars across all categories, with five nominations for Best Achievement in Costume Design. While Carter’s Academy Award recognition is more than well deserved, progress toward more acknowledgment of Black talent behind the scenes still needs to be made.
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In celebration of Carter’s incredible achievement, we’re taking the time to highlight more Black costume designers who have worked on some of our favorite films and TV shows. From “Wicked” to “A Different World,” here are the costume masters behind the camera.
“Wicked” (2024) – Paul Tazewell
Nine-time Tony-nominated costume designer and Root 100 honoree Paul Tazewell brought the magical world of Oz alive with his brilliant costume design in “Wicked.” He also made history at the 2025 Academy Awards as the first Black man to win Best Achievement in Costume Design. However, the 2024 film was not his first rodeo with the Oz universe. According to an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Tazewell had done between five and six productions of “The Wiz” on Broadway before “Wicked.”
In an interview with Teen Vogue, Tazewell noted that he was very intentional when picking fabrics for Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), saying he focused on textures of roots, bark and mushrooms to speak to Elphaba’s grounded nature and advocacy for animals throughout the film.
“Harlem” (2021-2025) – Deirdra Elizabeth Govan
Keeping our leading ladies fly in Prime’s “Harlem” is costume designer Deirdra Elizabeth Govan. Speaking to costume design publication The Art of Costume, Govan said that her process is rooted in research and music.
“It’s always about research, and I am inspired by so many different things at any given point in time,” Govan said. “Music is a very integral part of my creative process. Sometimes when I’m doing sketches or illustrations, or even just putting together mood boards, colors and fabrics, I have music in the background that I feel is setting the tone for the look.”
In her career, Govan has received two nominations for bringing characters to life through costume design. In 2019, she was nominated for Outstanding Costume Design for the Black Reel Awards, and in 2024, she was nominated for Outstanding Costume Design for the Prime comedy series “I’m a Virgo” by the NAACP.
“Dreamgirls” (2006) – Sharen Davis
Taking the iconic Broadway production “Dreamgirls” and turning it into a glamorous feature film could not have been achieved without the help of Sharen Davis. According to CBS News, Davis buckled down to create 120 dresses from scratch for the Paramount production, and her dedication did not go unnoticed. “Dreamgirls” earned Davis her second Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Costume Design after having been nominated for the 2005 Ray Charles biopic “Ray.”
Speaking about why she loves costume design, Davis told The Hollywood Reporter she loves the “puzzle of it.”
“I love the puzzle of it all. And I love when we’re not just making a film — we’re also learning about people’s personalities, or we’re fighting for a cause, or we’re representing somebody who is important that needs to be noticed. That is really most important to me.”
“Girlfriends” (2000-2008) – Stacy Beverly
The outfits on UPN’s “Girlfriends” never missed, and for that, we have costume designer Stacy Beverly to thank. In a 2018 interview on the podcast “Girl With the Bamboo Earring,” Beverly said that she spent time searching “high and low” to make the girls look fly on a budget.
“We would search high and low, catch sales, department stores, flea markets, vintage stores, resale stores, consignment stores, different little boutiques, and we would comb all the ends of the earth,” Beverly said. “It was crazy because we just really don’t get the budget to make it happen.”
Although Beverly didn’t have a large budget, her outfit choices have proved to be timeless as Gen Z often references the stylish friend group as go-to fashion inspiration on TikTok. Beverly has also taken her talents to shows like the 2006 CW sitcom “The Game,” the Prime series “Cross” and the first season of ABC’s “Black-ish.”
“black-ish” (2014-2022) – Michelle Cole
Costume designer Michelle Cole styled the hilarious and quirky Johnson family for ABC’s “black-ish.” Her work on the sitcom earned her five Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Contemporary Costumes. She also did the costume design for the spinoff “grown-ish” and told Teen Vogue that she was inspired by HBCU fashion.
“I love anything that has to do with what New Yorkers are wearing on the street,” Cole said. “I also love looking at the fashion of people in college, like Howard University. They tend to dress different on the East Coast and I like the layers. Spelman as well, we’ll pull inspiration from there.”
In the ’90s, Cole worked as the costume designer for the iconic sketch show “In Living Color,” where she was nominated for four Primetime Emmys for her design flair. Of her time on the comedy program, Cole told the awards publication Awards Focus that it taught her to “trust her instincts.”
“Kindred” (2022) – Jaclyn Banner
Jaclyn Banner meshed the contemporary with the past for FX’s adaptation of Octavia Butler’s classic sci-fi novel “Kindred.” To do this, Banner had to create hundreds of Regency-era costumes from scratch, sourcing fabrics from as far as Thailand, according to the Motion Pictures Association publication, The Credits. She also told the publication that she was conscious of how enslaved people are often portrayed in films and TV and wanted to show their humanity.
“We’ve seen [enslaved people] in clothes that were ragged and haggard, and we’ve seen other shows where they are in really dirty clothing with lots of holes,” Banner said. “With this project, we knew it was definitely of a very sensitive nature and could trigger a lot of different things for a lot of different people, so we tried to be conscious of that. We also wanted to show that the enslaved are still human beings.”
Banner received a nomination for Outstanding Costume Design in 2024 from the Black Reel Awards.
“Reasonable Doubt” (2022) – Derica Cole Washington
Thanks to Derica Cole Washington’s design chops, Hulu’s legal drama “Reasonable Doubt” is teaching folks how to look badass in and outside of the courtroom. In an interview with Essence magazine, Washington said that her style inspiration for Jax (Emayatzy Corinealdi) comes from taking the time to understand the character.
“When I first put together my boards for her and came up with the creative direction for the character, I broke them down into different subsets of her life. So, understanding that this is a woman who has a full, complete range,” she explained.
Washington has also been recognized for her work in the 2020 dark comedy “Zola,” for which she was nominated for Excellence in Contemporary Film by the Costume Designers Guild Awards.
“Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood” (1996) – Valari Adams
To pull off the hilarious looks in the Wayans Brothers’ 1996 classic parody “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood,” Valari Adams came to the rescue. Adams has also worked with the Wayans on “Scary Movie 2” and the sketch comedy “In Living Color.” She is also credited on IMDb for being the costume designer on 98 episodes of “The Jamie Foxx Show.”
“A Different World” (1987-1993) – Ceci
Iconic costume designer Ceci has made her mark on the design world with hit shows such as “A Different World,” “Sister, Sister,” “Living Single” and “Dear White People.” In an interview with HuffPost, Ceci said that because of the fast-paced nature of TV, she doesn’t like to rely on inspiration from other magazines and other designers.
“Looking at other people’s designs didn’t serve me. Eventually, you have to just forget all those things and come up with whatever your own hand is, whatever your own perspective is,” Ceci explained.
“Each of those characters that everybody finds memorable or finds a little bit of themselves in is because they’re well-defined… because the writers have defined them in terms of the scripts,” she added. “So it’s my job now to take that, amplify that, give you a visual representation of who these people are.”
“BlacKkKlansman” (2018) – Marci Rodgers
For the Spike Lee-directed and Jordan Peele-produced crime film “BlacKkKlansman,” Marci Rodgers brought the 1970s back to life with her intentional styling choices that made characters feel real and not like caricatures. Speaking to The Credits, Rodgers said she spent hours doing research at her alma mater, Howard University, to get the aesthetic of the characters right.
“I visited Howard University, my alma mater, and did hours of research there. I looked through Essence magazine. I looked through Kwame Ture’s files because he was a student there,” Rodgers said. “I found most of my archival research there in the ’70s—photos, ads, etc.”
Her diligent work was recognized by the Costume Designers Guild Awards, where she was nominated in 2019 for Excellence in Period Film. She also received nominations from the London Critics Circle Film Awards for Technical Achievement.
“Insecure” (2016-2021) – Ayanna James Kimani
Even though “Insecure” might have been a show about capturing the struggles of early adulthood, costume designer Ayanna James Kimani made sure our beloved characters always ate on screen while making often questionable decisions. In an interview with HuffPost, Kimani said that she intended to make the characters feel authentic and highlight Black designers throughout the seasons.
“I just wanted to make sure that I was doing my part in showcasing the characters authentically and using local designers,working with Black designers and working with designers in the diaspora,” Kimani said. “That was always my intention because those were the characters that I was dressing.”
Other than “Insecure,” Kimani has worked on the CW’s “All American: Homecoming,” Jay-Z’s 2017 “Family Feud” music video and the MGM+ thriller “Emperor of Ocean Park.”
“The Color Purple” (2023) – Francine Jamison-Tanchuck
For “The Color Purple” (2023), Francine Jamison-Tanchuck tried to keep a few design choices from the 1985 film after having worked on the original film production as a costume supervisor for Aggie Guerard Rodgers, the 1985 film’s costume designer, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“What I remember so vividly was Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey and all the wonderful costumes Aggie designed,” Jamison-Tanchuck told the Los Angeles Times. “I tried to keep a little of that in this more recent version of the film — the red of [Shug’s] dress and the feathers in her headdress. I got Aggie’s permission to copy a little bit of that. She said, ‘Honey, go for it.’”
Jamison-Tanchuck’s impeccable costume design skills caught the eyes of the Critics’ Choice Awards, where she was nominated for Best Costume Design, and won her praise from the NAACP Image Awards, where she won for Outstanding Costume Design.
That’s So Raven (2003-2007) – Nancy Butts Martin
We would not have Disney’s most stylish leading girl, Raven Baxter, without Nancy Butts Martin. Raven-Symoné was always dressed to the nines on the Disney Channel show “That’s So Raven.” In an interview with Teen Vogue, Martin confessed that Raven’s iconic looks came from Martin altering pieces to make them unique to the Disney star.
“I usually would change the pieces that I purchase. I’ll change a collar, I’ll actually put three items together to make it into one. Like if I liked the sleeves of this, I like the body of this, or I want to put a piece of another item there, I’ll do it. That’s the fun thing that we get to do. And we do that the most,” Martin explained. “We just like to add to it because Raven Baxter, who she is, likes to add a little flair to everything.”
After “That’s So Raven,” Martin continued her work with Disney as the costume designer for shows like “A.N.T. Farm” and “Cory in the House,” and she worked on the iconic “The Cheetah Girls 2.” These days, she’s back in Raven’s closet as the costume designer on the “That’s So Raven” reboot, “Raven’s Home.”
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