Every scene in Ryan Coogler’s Southern vampire epic, Sinners, is seeping with intention.
Inspired by Coogler’s own family history, the film follows the journey of twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, as they return to their Mississippi hometown after years away in Chicago with a plan to open their own juke joint. But when an evil Irish vampire threatens their plans, they must stand up for their dreams and loved ones. Set against the backdrop of Jim Crow–era racism and the birth of blues music, the historical horror story has quickly enamored moviegoers and broken box-office records. While, yes, Sinners is a film about vampires—there is plenty of blood to go around—it’s also a film that stresses the importance of race and legacy and dives into the art of seduction and Southern cultural politics. It’s a film that dares to ask, are we ever really free?
Thanks to Coogler’s direction, Autumn Durald’s cinematography, and costumes carefully curated by Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter, Sinners is a visual feast that will stay with you long after you leave the theater. Carter, of course, is no stranger to costuming films that quickly enter the Black cinematic canon; Do the Right Thing, Coming to America, B.A.P.S., Blade, and both Black Panther movies have all received her Midas touch. But Carter agrees that the success of Sinners feels different—and means so much more.
“This story connects us to our African past, to our Southern roots, to our culture,” Carter shares with Harper’s Bazaar. “That’s what Ryan expressed to all of us: that this was a connection story. Working with somebody like Ryan Coogler is a joy. It’s an immersive experience, and when we’re all together making movies, it feels like the old days.”
Ahead, Ruth E. Carter breaks down all of the details that went into costuming the cast of Sinners, including hunting for the perfect hats, enforcing a “no-tailoring” rule, and the hidden vintage gems that made it into the film’s post-credits scene.
What has it been like seeing all of the amazing reactions to Sinners so far?
It’s unexpected because we knew we were making a horror picture, but I never focused on the horror part. I focused on the Mississippi Delta and the blues and the sharecroppers and the migration and all of that. I had to remind myself, “Oh, they’re gonna bloody this one up!” When one of my team members said, “You know we’re gonna have to make 10 of these [pieces]?” I would say, “Oops! Sorry, guys. I was just focusing so much on the story of it all.” The response to it all is what I wanted it to be; I wanted people to see the Mississippi Delta, and I wanted them to see the story of the blues. Now that it’s rolling out and people are seeing this is more than just a horror film and that it has all of these layers—we made it with the intention of having those layers. There was a story within a story within a story.
What were the specific details you knew you had to get right to depict style in the Deep South during this time period?
I looked at a lot of paintings. I felt like this was an American story, and a lot of old American paintings are very simple in their color palette, so I decided I wanted a very simple color palette that was red, white, and blue. I referenced a lot of photography too. We looked at Eudora Welty, who was a photographer in the 1920s and 1930s. She went through the South, and she captured all of these images of Black families and people just living their lives. I wanted the simplicity of what I saw in those images to transcend into the costumes, but it was very Norman Rockwell—very red, white, and blue.
Workwear was very important to me also and [depicting] sharecroppers who made something out of nothing. When some of them arrived at the juke joint in the movie, they had on their best dresses that they probably made themselves. It’s the 1930s—it’s not slavery—so they’re not all just walking in from the fields after being whipped by the massa. It’s a place in time where there were 40 acres and a mule, and even though they were disenfranchised, they did have plantation money where they could spend a little bit or they could make something for themselves out of something else, and hand-me-downs were a big thing. I told my background costumers that they couldn’t do any alterations. If something was big, it had to stay big. If something was long, you had to turn the cuff up because that’s what they did.
There’s also a darkness and sexiness to it all, and it was important to bring that into the costumes as well, so we made sure everybody was sweaty because down south it’s hot during the day and it’s hot at night. I was constantly getting my costumers to come to set with a sweat bottle and making sure everybody had that texture.
The suits that Michael B. Jordan wears as Smoke and Stack were also impeccably made.
Stack’s suit had three little buttons down the front. It had a 1920s cut, and knowing they were coming from Chicago, we figured they likely had custom suits done. His character is very self-conscious and [plans] every little detail; on his pants, the pockets are slanted, he’s got the collar bar, the tie bar, the cuff links—he’s got everything. I remember flying back to L.A. to look for things because in New Orleans, some things you can find, some you can’t. I wanted to find Stack’s hat, and I walked into this hat shop on Melrose, and there was this red hat that ended up being perfect. I’ve worked with a lot of hat aficionados, and I know you can’t just throw your hat around or leave it anywhere, so we had these leather cases made just to hold his hat because it had to stay perfect the whole time.
Smoke is less conscious. He doesn’t have a tie, he represents the everyman, and his suit was a little more boxy, a little bigger, and a little less tailored because he’s hiding all kinds of stuff; he’s got two guns, he’s got a knife. His look reminds me of Don Cheadle in Devil in a Blue Dress. He’ll take you down in a second. I loved his blue hat too because it was made of denim and was meant to represent workwear. We really did this movie so fast; there are little things that if I could just take a magic paintbrush and be at the theater and tell the projectionist [to change, I’d be like], “Hold on! Can you pause right here? I have to add a little bit of age to the hat!” But I love the juxtaposition of the red and blue [tones] with Smoke and Stack. That was Ryan’s idea.
This film also features two extremely strong female characters in Annie and Mary. These are confident, strong, and sensual women—but they are still so different. How did you build their wardrobes?
Annie was the hoodoo woman of the neighborhood, and we all know that person who is your spiritual anchor. Those kinds of people usually come with a specific energy, and we needed the wardrobe to help support the energy of who Annie was, so I went through many, many trials. When you first see her, she’s in a skirt that’s raw silk, and it’s got these little tiny sequins on there. The fabric just felt magical to me. We aged it and dusted it down and added some fringe, and if there were more scenes where she was moving, that long fringe would have felt wispy and magical. We also gave her a mojo bag and a little leather pouch, and she had all of the stuff she needed:a cut-off piece of root, her holy water, things like that. She was carrying stuff constantly because she was busy! She embodied the world, and her clothes needed to feel as if she was a person of the earth. Also, very few women in the film wore earrings, but I gave her some, as well as necklaces made of spiritual beads. Most of the characters in this story didn’t have money, so jewelry would not have been a priority—but I gave Annie earrings because I feel like the trinkets added to her story.
And then in comes Mary! Mary had left her community; she married a wealthy man, [but now] she’s getting on the train to go back after her mother’s funeral, and she’s in her little knit dress. She doesn’t even look like she belongs. She’s like a ghost from another planet or another stratosphere, and that was the intention with her look. She’s not a part of the struggle and the strife that is the Mississippi Delta; like Smoke and Stack, she’s made another life for herself. We meet her in this pale, pale, pale color, and she’s wearing the same dress when she goes to the juke, and that was on purpose. I wanted for her to seem ghostly because of what happens to her later on and all of the blood that eventually gets onto the silk. It was very intentional.
Everyone has been raving about the juke-joint montage scene, which was such a feat in costuming. How did that scene come to be?
Everybody was almost haunted by that when we first read the script. Everything featured in that scene was either built or acquired. Like, 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. The fittings were amazing for that, because all of the dancers would dance in the outfits so we could see the movement of the clothes.
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.
We were all studying how blues influenced music and how the genre came out of struggle. People needed light in their lives, [and they] found a way to create instruments that hearken back to the instruments of their ancestry.
As I was getting these ideas, I would make big boards and I would go to set and I would update the boards so that when we got to the montage, no one was surprised to see the things come to set.
That scene almost felt like no one but you could have costumed it, just because it felt like such an accumulation of the work we’ve seen from you over the years.
They say people have a signature, and that’s probably one of the one things that I do constantly on every project. I need realism, I need authenticity. I need to believe it when I see it. So I guess in my mind, if I believe it, it’s giving my touch to the picture, and it may not be as important to someone else to do something in the way that I do it. They’ll do it their way, which is not wrong—it’s just their way.
There’s also a fun post-credits scene where we fast-forward to the 1990s and we see Michael B. Jordan in a fantastic Coogi sweater. Was that a new one or was it vintage?
It’s vintage! 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.
This obviously is not your first time collaborating with Ryan and with Michael—and likely won’t be your last—but how has it felt celebrating this moment together with Sinners?
It feels like we have formed the most incredible team; we have such love for each other. Those Black Panther movies were really hard; you’re under Marvel's gaze. You’re working with a huge team. There’s a lot that you are expected to create in a short amount of time. There are superhero suits and three or four Zoom meetings every week. It’s like we went through a battle; we went through a big Super Bowl and we won.
We appreciate each other as family and also as artists. Ryan Coogler never stops being the go-to person, the leader. He’s got the clearest vision about what we’re doing, and having his wife, Zinzi, come in and work alongside him for this project was incredible.
I didn’t realize just how important this film was going to be to everyone. It was important to me, and it was important to Ryan, but it feels like people have received every ounce that we put in it. Someone has commented on every piece of the puzzle, and that’s beautiful. That’s the way filmmaking should be.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
