Costume designer Ruth E. Carter has revealed her process of designing the new Black Panther super suit for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as well as other characters’ costumes. Carter revealed her biggest challenge was creating a suit that would also function underwater. She also explained the importance of elevating Queen Ramonda’s status and the significance of gold and silver in Princess Shuri’s suit.
As revealed by Deadline's, Carter has admitted that her biggest challenge in designing a new costume for Black Panther was underwater functionality. “Clothes aren’t meant to be worn underwater for eight hours and used again the next day,” Carter explained. “We had to rethink everything about what fibres could go in water and still look organic.” Durability was not the only concern, with the material also needing to look elegant and yet also be weighted. “We’d like to think clothes look like ballet all the time in water, but they just rise up.” With many scenes taking place underwater, these factors also had to be considered for other costumes as well, including Namor’s (Tenoch Huerta). “There were so many aspects to being in water that worked against us,” Carter had previously told The Hollywood Reporter in an earlier interview. “We made a headdress for Namor with organic materials and feathers. He went underwater and everyone loved the way it looked and floated.”
After the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, Carter revealed she wanted to create a suit that both incorporated T’Challa’s suit and played to Princess Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) femininity. “We didn’t go too far away from her form, the silhouette of a woman, with a bust and hips and shoulders,” Carter explained. “But we also wanted to delicately enhance the dynamic figure of the panther suit.” Part of what gave the suit more femininity was the use of adornments on the suit, which took the designers and creators a lot of time to pull off. “Adding more of the striations on the suit gives it a bit more brilliance than the former Panther suit,” she said, referring to the use of both gold and silver elements. T’Challa’s original suit, on the other hand, only had silver vibranium adornments. “T’Challa’s suit highlighted the physique. In this case, we also highlight the adornments, and that’s what gives it its femininity.”
The use of metal was also an important feature of Queen Ramonda’s (Angela Bassett) costume in elevating her status. “We see a strong presence of metal. Her crown has been elevated and she has a collar to her dress that’s been 3D-printed and painted to look like metal,” Carter said. In Black Panther (2018), Ramonda was in an advisory role, requiring her costume to be more relaxed rather than needing to exude the strength of a ruler. However, her new costume also allows her to show some of her vulnerability, particularly in her exposed arms. “For Angela Bassett, that is her strongest asset. Those powerful arms of hers,” Carter said.
Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the much-anticipated sequel to Black Panther. After the passing of Boseman, the script was rewritten to tell the story of a new Black Panther following the passing of King T’Challa. The film sees the Wakandans band together with Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) as new threats emerge. The film also stars Danai Gurira (Okoye), Winston Duke (M’Baku), Dominique Thorne (Riri), Florence Kasumba (Ayo), Michaela Coel (Aneka), Alex Livinalli (Attuma), and Mabel Cadena (Namora) among others. The film was directed by Ryan Coogler, and written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still playing in theaters. Check out Collider's interview with Coogler below: