On a Saturday night in early November, the African American Museum in Philadelphia threw open its doors for the opening of "Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design," a traveling exhibition that had finally made its way to the city where the museum itself was born. The night was about more than a new show. It was the beginning of a golden anniversary — the museum's fiftieth year — and the arrival of a designer whose work has, for four decades, dressed the story of Black America on screen.
The exhibition, on view at 701 Arch Street through September 6, 2026, is the eighth stop in a tour that began in Atlanta in late 2020. It is also the first place anywhere in the world to display costumes from "Sinners," Ryan Coogler's blues-steeped vampire epic set in the Jim Crow-era Mississippi Delta. That film made Academy Award history in January 2026, earning a record number of Oscar nominations. And among those nominations was another for Carter herself.
For Carter, the recognition carried a particular weight. She had already won Oscars for "Black Panther" in 2019 and "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" in 2023, becoming a two-time Oscar winner and, in 2019, the first Black person ever to win the costume design Oscar.
The path to that staying power began in Springfield, Massachusetts. She studied theater at Hampton University, where she discovered costume design almost by accident — auditioning for a play she didn't get, then being told she could try costumes instead. She went to the library to look up what a costume designer even was. "I had to make up my own curriculum," she later recalled.
Her big break came when Spike Lee hired her for his second feature, "School Daze," in 1988. She went on to design "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X," the latter of which earned her first Oscar nomination. There followed "Amistad," "Selma," "The Butler," and "Dolemite Is My Name" — a filmography that, in the words of the exhibition's organizers, captures the African American narrative and leaves its mark on cinematic history.
The Philadelphia show gathers more than eighty of those looks across three galleries, including T'Challa's vibranium-laced "Black Panther" suit and the pinstriped three-piece suits of Smoke and Stack from "Sinners."
The exhibition also includes Carter's childhood sewing machine, hand-drawn sketches, and personal ephemera, offering visitors a behind-the-scenes look at her research and design process. The costumes are framed by colorful sets hand-painted by artist Brandon Sadler, and the show was co-curated by Julia Long. It debuted at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film in Atlanta in December 2020. Since then it has traveled to Roanoke, Seattle, Raleigh, Detroit, Williamsburg, and Indianapolis before landing in Philadelphia.
The choice of venue is fitting. The African American Museum in Philadelphia is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and Carter's show serves as its centerpiece.
Carter sees the exhibition as a continuation of that mission. "I'm telling the unique story of people who built this country," she said. For visitors, the show offers a rare chance to stand close to the fabric of that story: the suits, the dresses, the fedoras, and the sketches that helped shape how the world sees Black America — and how Black America sees itself.
"Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design" is on view through September 6, 2026, at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch Street.