Costume designer Ruth E Carter becomes first black woman to win two Oscars

The American designer won for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Ruth E Carter, winner of the Best Costume Design award for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Getty Images

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever costume designer Ruth E Carter has become the first black woman to win two Oscars.

The designer, who won for Black Panther in 2019 and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever this year, dedicated her Oscar win to her late mother, Mabel Carter, and the film's late star, Chadwick Boseman.

In 2019, she became the first black person to win an Academy Award in the costume design category. She has been nominated a total of four times, first in 1993 for Malcolm X and in 1998 for Amistad.

This year, Carter, 62, beat Jenny Beavan, who has won several Oscars and was nominated this year for Mrs Harris Goes To Paris, Catherine Martin for Baz Luhrmann's biopic Elvis, Shirley Kurata for Everything Everywhere All at Once and Mary Zophres for Babylon.

Accepting her award, Carter said: "Thank you to the academy for recognising the super hero that is a black woman, she endures, she loves, she overcomes, she is every woman in this film. She is my mother.

"This past week Mabel became an ancestor. This film prepared me for this moment, Chadwick [Boseman] please take care of mum."

Boseman, who played King T'Challa in the original 2018 film Black Panther, died in 2020 from colon cancer at the age of 43.

Of her creative team, Carter said: "Together we are reshaping how culture is represented.

"I share this with many dedicated artists whose hands and hearts helped manifest the costumes of Wakanda. This is for my mother, she was 101."

Carter was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, and studied costume design at Hampton University. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she met director Spike Lee.

The prolific costume designer has worked in the industry for more than three decades, creating costumes for more than 40 films, ranging from period pieces — including Ava DuVernay's film Selma — to futurist designs in superhero movie Black Panther.

See all of the winners at the 2023 Oscars — in pictures

— Additional reporting from PA News