‘Your skill is recognised, celebrated beyond boundaries’: Designer JJ Valaya on working with Ruth Carter for ‘Wakanda Forever’

Some time last month, Carter told Popsugar that this film was “one of the most complex endeavours”, and that it was “wonderful to work with young Black and brown designers”. “They were extremely excited and had little idea that the programme they signed up for would lead them here to ‘Wakanda Forever‘,” the 62-year-old was quoted as telling the outlet.

More recently, JJ Valaya — whose stellar creations are synonymous with being larger-than-life themselves — during an exclusive interaction with indianexpress.com, opened up about the collaboration process and his overall experience, his thoughts on ‘Black pride’ and ‘cultural appropriation‘, and how different it was from working on an Indian project, among others.

Excerpts:

Tell us about your recent association with Ruth Carter for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. What was the experience?

Honestly, the first word that would come to my mind would be ‘gratitude’… to be able to work with a highly-accomplished, Oscar-winning costume designer for a project that is perhaps one of the most special and biggest ones in 2022. What else can one ask for? Ruth is an absolute delight to work with. She is deeply-humble, respectful, and extremely easy to work with. It is important, because the energies of people must align when they are going to work together. And then, of course, to be able to create something in association with her, for something as massive as this film, was an absolute honour.

(L-R): Danai Gurira as Okoye, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, and Florence Kasumba as Ayo in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Photo by Eli Adé. © 2022 MARVEL; PR handout)

What went on during the collaboration process, in terms of exchange of ideas and having a vision of what will finally appear on the big screen?

The process started a few years ago, when Ruth’s team was looking for a partner in India who could work with them on creating clothes for ‘Coming to America‘, an Eddie Murphy-starrer. They finally discovered us, and [Black Panther] is really our second project in Hollywood and with Ruth. This one, of course, is extremely special. We started work on this pre-Covid, and worked on this collection for nearly 8 months.

It involved a lot of to-and-fro; we were creating specialised fabrics, techniques, designing prints to make sure the palette, and the look and feel were similar to what Ruth had in mind for the entire film.

Black Panther is a popular film with beloved characters. How challenging and exciting was it when you created the looks for Angela Bassett’s ‘Queen Ramonda’?

Essentially, Black Panther is the only movie where there is an opportunity to create the clothes we did for Queen Ramonda. The rest of the looks are fairly futuristic, semi-casual, but when it comes to Queen Ramonda in Wakanda Forever, where she is now the queen and has to appear authoritative and take hard stands, it was important to reflect the character in that way.

We worked on 70 per cent of all of Ramonda’s looks in the film. The simpler pieces — I think there two or three of them — were handled by Ruth herself, out of LA. We sat down and worked in extreme detail on how to create the aura that a queen needs when she is taking control of a kingdom.

Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Photo by Eli Adé. © 2022 MARVEL; PR handout)

The fabrics seen in the film comprise elegant details and prints that are heavily embroidered and timeless, but also culturally different from Indian prints. What kind of homework did you have to do?

Ruth Carter, besides being an extremely-talented individual, is also warm, welcoming and respectful of the partner she chooses to work with. In Coming to America, she worked with several partners from across the world, but in Wakanda Forever, she worked with only three design houses. We were very humbled to be included as the third brand.

In terms of briefing… fashion design and costume design are very different. In fashion, we are preparing clothes for individuals and making them feel good about their whole look. But, when it comes to movies and costume design, you are talking about taking forward the vision of a director, which then gets channelised by the costume designer, who [brings it forth] with the partners working with her.

The initial brief and sketches, the look-feel and mood boards came from LA. We then spent time studying them and started developing textures, fabrics, colours which would be in sync with what she had in mind. And then, a prince came in, and that required another study because we had to culturally and historically be correct to some extent — of course it is all fictional. Eventually, we had to develop the crafts. It was a process-driven initiative, which took its time. And the results are for all to see.

Where were the clothes manufactured?

All the clothes were made in our studios and factories. We started right from pattern-making, then getting down to making the muslins, which were sent to LA for fittings. We got feedback, they were tweaked, we started parallelly developing the fabrics and the prints, which again went through a lot of to-and-fro. Eventually, it came down to the craft. We make sure every single product of ours is made in-house so that we can maintain the quality parameters. Filming, of course, happened at various places, but I was not there on-set.

 

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Any lessons, takeaways from having worked closely with Ruth Carter and Angela Bassett?

We are just happy that the result was so beautiful and everybody noticed. And that we got the opportunity to dress the queen and make her look as resplendent as she does. Working with Angela Bassett, who is an accomplished actor, was of course [special]. But, most importantly, it was working with the wonderful Ruth — if everything goes well, we may be starting a third project, too — that mattered. Your skill is recognised and celebrated beyond boundaries.

 

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Since you worked on a project synonymous with ‘Black pride‘, did the thought of ‘cultural appropriation‘ ever cross your mind?

Not really. For me, it was the sheer thrill of working with somebody as accomplished as Ruth, for a film as huge as Black Panther, and for the finest companies in the world, Disney and Marvel. It was about creating something extremely special. So, when so many factors are at play, everything is taken forward positively.

 

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How different was this experience than, say, working for an Indian film project?

I think there is very little comparison. We have a highly-evolved film industry here in India. But, the way Hollywood works and the meticulous planning that goes into the production of films as large as Black Panther, they are on another scale altogether. It is just the way it is time-managed and planned, and the amount of detailing that one goes into, which is kind of refreshing.

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