The phenomenon of The Black Panther, the movie, the first 2018 release of the Marvel Comics cinematic franchise, has grossed $631 million as of March 25th, 2018 (Rubin, 2018). The movie, branded as a cultural phenomenon, creating a sense of pride among Black people globally, is also a visual feast for textile artists and designers. Throughout the move, the characters are swathed in a variety of textiles created via various structural and surface textile design techniques. The costume design team, led by Ruth E. Carter, not only created a visual menagerie of apparel that harkened back to textile techniques rooted in the various countries on the continent of Africa, but also employed a variety of historical textile techniques and current textile innovations. The purpose of this concept paper is to use Postmodern theory to analyze the costume team’s approach to the use of structural and surface textile design techniques in the movie The Black Panther.

The phenomenon of The Black Panther, the movie, the first 2018 release of the Marvel Comics cinematic franchise, has grossed $631 million as of March 25th, 2018 (Rubin, 2018). The movie, branded as a cultural phenomenon, creating a sense of pride among Black people globally, is also a visual feast for textile artists and designers. Throughout the move, the characters are swathed in a variety of textiles created via various structural and surface textile design techniques. The costume design team, led by Ruth E. Carter, not only created a visual menagerie of apparel that harkened back to textile techniques rooted in the various countries on the continent of Africa, but also employed a variety of historical textile techniques and current textile innovations. The purpose of this concept paper is to use Postmodern theory to analyze the costume team’s approach to the use of structural and surface textile design techniques in the movie The Black Panther.