At the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the institution is currently holding what may be the most significant costume exhibition of the decade. More than 80 original creations by Ruth E. Carter line the walls: costumes from Spike Lee's "Malcolm X"; the regalia of Zamunda from "Coming 2 America"; T'Challa's suit from "Black Panther"; and, newest of all, the sharply tailored pinstripe suits of Smoke and Stack from Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." Together they make up "Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design," a traveling retrospective that opened at the museum on November 1, 2025, and has become both a celebration of one woman's singular career and a meditation on the threads that bind American history.
The show's Philadelphia run is timed to serve as the start of the African American Museum in Philadelphia's 50th anniversary celebration. "They will take the pieces from Ms. Carter's life and how she came to be an ordinary person making extraordinary contributions," said museum president and CEO Ashley Jordan. Carter's costumes, which trace Black American history from enslavement to the Afrofuturist dreamscapes of Wakanda, offer an alternative archive — one stitched together in fabric rather than written in ink.
No moment in the exhibition captures the convergence of the show's themes better than the costumes from Ryan Coogler's "Sinners," which make their world premiere at this stop. On January 22, 2026, Carter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her work on the film; it was her fifth career nomination, making her the most nominated Black woman in the history of the Academy Awards.
The "Sinners" costumes on display include Smoke and Stack's pinstripe suits. "You get to see the Detroit red, and you get to see the costumes and the way they accentuate those personalities," said Michael Wilson, assistant curator and visual learning specialist at AAMP. The exhibit also includes T'Challa's suit from "Black Panther," which Carter has described as one of her most challenging designs — built so thin that the late actor Chadwick Boseman would blow out the pants during fight scenes.
The exhibition has a storied history. It first opened at the Savannah College of Art and Design's FASH Museum of Fashion and Film in Atlanta in December 2020. It has since traveled to the Taubman Museum of Art, the Museum of Pop Culture, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Jamestown Settlement, and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Philadelphia is the first venue to showcase the "Sinners" costumes. The exhibition is co-curated by Julia Long, with hand-painted scenic elements by Atlanta artist Brandon Sadler.
Visitors encounter Carter's journey from her humble beginnings in Springfield, Massachusetts, to the Dolby Theatre. The retrospective is anchored by her childhood sewing machine, the same one on which she learned to sew as a child. Carter, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the youngest of eight children, began learning to sew at age nine at the Boys & Girls Club, using her mother's sewing machine. She studied theater arts at Hampton University, interned at City Stage's costume department and the Santa Fe Opera, and moved to Los Angeles in 1986, where she met Spike Lee. He hired her for "School Daze" in 1988, launching a collaboration that would produce "Do the Right Thing," "Mo' Better Blues," "Jungle Fever," and "Malcolm X." The last earned her a first Oscar nomination in 1992. In 2019, she became the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for "Black Panther," and she repeated the feat in 2023 with "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," becoming the first Black woman to win multiple Oscars in any category.
The exhibit showcases not just completed costumes but also the process behind them: rare, hand-drawn character sketches and a behind-the-scenes look at Carter's research, design, and production process. "I'm telling the unique story of people who built this country," Carter said. That dedication is visible in every garment — the "Malcolm X" suits, the Afrofuturist armor of "Black Panther," the period costumes of "Amistad" and "Selma," and now the pinstriped looks of "Sinners."
The exhibition remains on view through September 6, 2026. What awaits is more than a display of famous costumes. It is the sartorial chronicle of a people — where they have been, who they are, and who they dream of becoming — told one stitch, one hem, one carefully chosen hat at a time.