If you want a chance to speak with the woman who worked on T’Challa’s iconic armor and the 3D-printed crown Angela Bassett served in as Queen Ramonda, mark your calendar now.

Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter is A&O Productions’ Spring Speaker. On Saturday, April 23, RTVF Professor Miriam Petty will moderate a discussion with Carter. The event will take place at 5:15 p.m. following a 3:00 p.m. screening of Black Panther, the film that earned Carter her Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 2019. Both the screening and the discussion will take place in Harris 107.

While Afrofuturism heavily inspired the aesthetics Carter employed in Black Panther, she’s also familiar with depicting Black culture through a historical lens. In Selma, Carter recreated styles from pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement. In the biographical film Dolemite Is My Name, Carter delved into 70s fashion, styling lead actor Eddie Murphy in whimsical suits and statement hats.

Carter is known for her extensive work on films created alongside cinematic legends like Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay. She’s responsible for the wardrobe design in Coming 2 America, Do the Right Thing and The Butler as well as dozens of other films and TV shows.

She also did costume design for Amistad and Malcolm X, both of which earned her nominations for Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards before her 2019 win. Earlier this year, Carter became the first costume designer honored at the NAACP Image Awards, where she won the Vanguard Award for Costume Design.

To learn a bit more about Carter before the event, here’s a 25-minute breakdown of the designer’s career. You can also check out some of the movies she’s worked on in her impressive three-decade-plus career – NBN suggests starting with Disney Channel classic Teen Beach Movie.

If you want to attend A&O’s second Speaker Event of the year – the first was headlined by Alyssa Edwards and Shea Couleé – tickets will be available Friday at 2:00 p.m. You can register for the event, which is free to Northwestern students, through the Norris Box Office website.

Thumbnail graphic by Bailey Richards. Photos used courtesy of The Guardian.