Everything We Know About The African Fashion In Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’
Marvel shared the first trailer for Black Panther over the weekend and just like everyone else, we’re thrilled. Black Panther will hit cinemas in February next year, which also happens to be Black History Month in America. Black Panther, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966, is a superhero from Wakanda, a fictional African country in the Marvel Universe.
Whether you’ll be watching it for socio-political reasons or cause you’re a fan of the comics, we bet you’ll have a blast. And if you haven’t seen it already, take a look at the teaser trailer below:
Because it’s a fictional African country, it isn’t particularly easy to create a valid wardrobe that doesn’t come off gimmicky. But we have to commend Ruth E. Carter for being as accurate as can be. Ruth is an African-American costume designer for film and television with over 40 films to her credit. She’s mastered the looks of multiple time periods and genres. She’s also earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Costume Design for her work in Malcom X and Amistad.
For Black Panther, she’s worked with Ikiré Jones – whose work is a blend of traditional African prints and western attire. She also drew inspiration from several African cultures to give the film a more authentic feel.
Here are some of the inspirations we noticed:
Ikiré Jones
Wale Oyejide is the Nigerian designer behind the Ikiré Jones label. He uses textile and apparel design to convey stories about immigrant populations to the Western world. His designs fuse tailored suits and accessories with sampled art history designs. He inserts African figures into the context of foreign art history traditions, in this case European and Japanese. In 2016, Ikiré Jones tweeted at the official Marvel handle about handling the wardrobe for the Black Panther and now it’s a reality we’re all seeing. We see Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa in an Ikiré Jones’ ensemble in what appears to be a meeting at the UN.
Maasai people
The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known ethnic groups in East Africa because of their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress. While their clothing styles vary by age and location, red, blue, black, striped, and chequered cloth are their favoured colours and styles.
Lip plates
Lip plates or lip discs are a form of body modification where increasingly large discs (usually circular, and made from clay or wood) are inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it. It is custom to some cultures in Sudan and Ethiopia.
