Oscars Winners of Fashion and Beauty; The Whale and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The Oscars were last night and history was made. Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman and the second woman of color ever to win the award for Best Female Actor in a leading role. Ke Huy Quan was emotionally reunited with Harrison Ford when Everything, Everywhere, All at Once won best picture, as Quan’s first role was in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. Among these historic wins, there were awards for Best Hair and Makeup as well as Best Costume Design, which went to The Whale and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, respectively.
Image: Marvel Studios via The New York Times
Ruth Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever became the first black woman ever to win two Oscars (her first win was for Black Panther in 2019). While this statistic is rather jarring, it is not all that shocking, since the Oscars have historically been overwhelmingly white.
Her costumes for both Black Panther and its sequel are Afro-Futuristic, imagining a world where Africa was never impacted by the ravages of colonization. In the most recent film, Carter also ventured into what she dubs ‘Latino-futurism,’ creating looks inspired by Mayan culture. Carefully researched, thought out, and designed, drawing from cultures and tribes across Africa and the world, it is not a surprise that Carter has taken home this prestigious award again.
Image: Marver Studios/Disney via Vanity Fair
The Oscar for Best Hair and Makeup went to Adrien Morot, the Montreal-born makeup artist behind Brendan Frasier’s prosthetics in The Whale. Frasier’s dramatic transformation into an obese professor has been one of the most talked about film moments this year.
Photo: Niko Tavernise/A24 via CBC
The prosthetics, which were 3-D printed, weighed several hundred pounds and took hours to put on. Because of their size and material, they were also extremely hot, which meant that Frasier went through bags of ice in order to cool his body down.
Morot created the prosthetics almost entirely on a computer, using images and measurements from Frasier because of limited access during the pandemic. The sheer challenge of this monumental task, in making digitally designed makeup look natural in real life, makes this win all the more impressive.