Ruth E. Carter received her 5th Academy Award nomination for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a film set in the Mississippi Delta in the early 1930s with themes of American South cultural politics, race, identity, blues and resilience. Carter looked to American paintings to come up with a red, white and blue colour palette.
She theorized that Smoke and Stack had their 20s-style wool suits custom made in Chicago before heading back South and this really distinguished them from the other characters. Stack was made to look a little more put together than Smoke, who was depicted more as an "everyman". She juxtaposed the twins with red and blue.
Annie had to look spiritual, so Carter created a raw silk fringed skirt with sequins and made sure she had earrings and beaded prayer necklaces. She was one of the few characters in the film to have any jewellery.
“The Haint Blue that she wears is an old Southern traditional blue that is supposed to ward off spirits. We kept her in those tones. When we first meet her, she has multiple layers you’re wondering about. You see a fringe, you see a mojo bag. You see she’s got a chatelaine. She’s carrying the things to work her magic.”
Mary was made to look like an outsider because she had married a wealthy man and moved away from her community. Carter put her in pale pink that seemed ghostly to both reference how she’s a ‘ghost’ from the past and also foreshadow what happens to her later in the movie. The dress she wears to the juke joint is more luxurious than what anyone else is wearing, so it really sets her apart. The pale silk also made the blood stand out later on in the movie.
For the Juke joint montage scene Carter said “for the hip-hop guys, I used something that LL Cool J wore back in the ’90s, and for the breakdancers and the DJ, I had custom [Adidas] Gazelles made.“
“We made a lot of the key pieces, like the outfit for the Zulu dancer from West Africa, including the mask that sits on his head. I used some skirts that I had made in Coming to America that were made of Ankara strips; we dyed them dark purple. We placed the mask on top of almost like a football helmet so it would stay on the dancer’s head.”
As for the 90s post credits scene, Michael B. Jordan wears a vintage Coogi sweater. “I went to a collector—literally just two kids who collected all this stuff from the ’80s and ’90s, and they keep everything in a Public Storage room. They had Malcolm X [movie] jackets … they had everything you could think of. Ryan had shown me this picture of these kids, and one of them had that Coogi sweater on and another one looked like Run D.M.C. with his Gazelles. I found out who had styled the picture, and I contacted them, and there were the two kids with the storage unit! I couldn’t believe how much great stuff they had.”
Workwear was important in depicting the sharecroppers, and breakdown was very important to these costumes, especially adding sweat.
This film was a huge tracking and continuity challenge with all of the blood and water involved. Carter told MotionPictures.org that “We changed him [Jordan] from Smoke to Stack four times a day, and he had to keep track of all of that. Also, the continuity – it was deconstructing a character who started fully dressed and ended up in a tank top, or ended up fully bloodied. Hats off to Mustapha [Jordan’s dresser]. Melissa [Swidzinski] ran the whole bloody truck, like walking into a plastic wonderland, because she had to keep the continuity of all the blood. It was a splatter that grew and grew as the story went on, so she had to keep a file of what blood happened when and at what transitional point.“
Our rentals manager Erin styled some looks (pulling from our rentals collection) based on Carter's designs for Smoke, Stack and Sammie, which you can check out on Instagram and I will transcribe below.
On her YouTube channel Behind the Seams, Carter explains that her biggest inspiration for the film was the Mississippi Delta in the early 1930s and the legacy of the African American diaspora. She wanted the costumes to honour the diaspora and the sharecroppers and blues musicians of the time who were navigating injustice, survival, migration, spirit, resistance, and artistry. Each stitch, as the costume designer describes it, “was a tribute to the resilience and the cultural impact they made on America.”
Using historical and visual research such as the photography of Eudora Welty and the paintings of Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Norman Rockwell, Carter found the American colour palette of red, white, and blue, which you can see in the costumes [we have pulled today].
Fellow Oscar Nominee, writer and director Ryan Coogler, wanted the twin characters Smoke and Stack, both played by nominee Michael B. Jordan, to each have their own distinct primary colour and style. They both wear custom wool suits to suggest time spent in cold-weather Chicago, possibly among mob circles, before returning home to the South transformed. Carter explains that Stack wears red to also reflect this change in personality in his time away. The colour also shows his passionate character. Trying to get something similar to the suit Carter created, we pulled this tailored dark brown suit with a red pinstripe. We also tried to pull all the accessories that the designer explains are important elements in showing the “self-concious” and meticulous parts of his personality.
Smoke, in contrast, wears blue, which similarly to Carter, we tried to bring out with his shirt and hat. Smoke’s grey suit is more boxy and he doesn’t wear a tie, as Jordan explains that his character “probably didn’t care about his appearance as much” as he is “closed up a bit” more in comparison to his brother. Carter shares that he is meant to “represent the everyman”. The denim cap is meant to also show the connection to workwear, which was an important part of the story the designer is telling and honouring.
Sammie’s costumes made out of cotton and linen are, as explained by Carter, pretty much all he had and shows his emotional and physical journey as he is discovering himself through this historical vampire film. The patches, the strain, and sweat were important details to the costumes as it highlights one of the film’s themes, which is resilience. The blues musician’s jacket and vest were dyed gold and brown as the character, played by Miles Caton, is also meant to, as Carter explains, “represent the earth” and “is the promise for tomorrow”.
To explore more about Carter’s process on the Best Picture–nominated Sinners, we highly recommend visiting her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@therealruthecarter
Congratulations to Ruth and the entire costume team on the work they did for this fantastic film and best of luck to them for the upcoming Academy Awards.
Some other resources used in our research are linked below.
How Ruth E. Carter Resurrected 1930s Southern Style for Sinners by Bianca Betancourt:
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a64567733/sinners-ruth-e-carter-costumes-interview-2025/
Ruth E. Carter’s Costumes For ‘Sinners’ Have Made Pop Culture Better by Rachel Elspeth Gross:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelelspethgross/2025/11/27/ruth-e-carters-costumes-for-sinners-have-made-pop-culture-better/
Pinstripes and Blood Spatter: Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Making Dark Magic in “Sinners” by Jack Giroux:
https://www.motionpictures.org/2025/05/pinstripes-and-blood-spatter-costume-designer-ruth-e-carter-on-making-dark-magic-in-sinners/
WB Behind The Scenes Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s72cBC-v6UE&t=576s