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With all due respect, costume designers aren’t often amongst the filmmakers who get a lot of name recognition outside of the industry. Actors, a number of directors, and even certain screenwriters are afforded that luxury, but it (sadly) doesn’t often extend to other roles on a set. In spite of this, two-time Oscar-winner Ruth E. Carter of “Black Panther” fame has become one of the biggest name in the business when it comes to costuming. She’s been at it for going on four decades and has been doing some of the best work of her career in recent years. Indeed, on top of her film work, Carter is also a major part of the biggest show on cable right now: “Yellowstone.”
As Taylor Sheridan was putting together his now-wildly popular Western series for Paramount Network, Carter was coming off of her work in the box office behemoth that was 2018’s “Black Panther.” At the time, she was tired and wasn’t looking to jump right into another big project. In the end, though, she gelled with Sheridan and it was off to the races. In a 2019 interview with GoldDerby, Carter explained how it happened:
“My agent called me and said, ‘You have to talk to Taylor Sheridan.’ I was really tired after ‘Black Panther.’ I really did not want to get back to work, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk to him. So he called me at home [and] we had the best conversation for two hours. He was just telling me about how the West was different, how cowboys aren’t the same, how it’s not some old idea, how it’s a new idea, how they wear their clothes very hip-hop at times and they evoke a lot of modern fashion, which I found hard to believe at the time, but then it made sense. Just his commitment to storytelling, we had such a great conversation, I was inspired and I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it.'”
Ruth E. Carter worked with Kevin Costner to craft his Yellowstone look
Carter noted she doesn’t recommend jumping from a big movie to a big TV show like that, but she still brought her best to the table. As the costume designer on everything from Spike Lee’s 1989 classic “Do the Right Thing” to the cult hit comedy “Black Dynamite,” she had a lot to bring to the table. However, the biggest thing Carter had to do was craft the look for the show’s lead, Kevin Costner.
“Yellowstone” fans know Costner as the ruthless John Dutton, the patriarch of the Dutton family. While Costner won’t be returning for the second half of the final season of “Yellowstone,” the show wouldn’t be what it is today without him. Carter spoke about what went into crafting Dutton’s look, and it involved a lot of custom-made clothing from brands like Carhartt, as well as sourcing vintage pieces:
“[Dutton] owns such a big ranch, he’s such a well-to-do man, so you know that everything has to be custom. Most of his shirts were custom. His jackets were all made from vintage and we kind of approached it from the depth of the Southwest and the color palette that you see there, he had a lot to say about things that he liked.”
Costner had decades of experience under his belt as both a director and actor when he signed up for the show, particularly in the Western genre. So, naturally, he had opinions about how his character should dress. Carter revealed that he and she collaborated to make John Dutton who he became:
“He had his barn wear, but most of his stuff was custom-made because [Costner] was very particular about how stuff fit and how things look and how they’re represented — vintage belt, the accessories were important to him. Kevin is an expert in cowboys. Still has it, still committed, still as handsome as ever. We went on that journey together.”
“Yellowstone” is streaming now on Peacock, or you can grab the series on Blu-ray/DVD via Amazon.
