(Bottom, left to right): Ruth E. Carter, Academy Award-winning costume designer; Dystany Spurlock, professional motorcycle drag racer and race car driver. Photographs by Donna Alberico.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s 17th annual Go Red Women’s Leadership Event – which the company hosted at its Purchase headquarters with the American Heart Association Westchester/Fairfield chapter on Friday, Feb. 6, National Wear Red Day – offered surprising insights into unusual professions featuring two trailblazing Black Women.
Two-time Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter (“Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), the first African American to win an Academy Award in that category, became the most-nominated Black woman in Oscar history with her fifth nomination for “Sinners,” a vampire movie set in the Jim Crow South and a trailblazer of its own with a record 16 nominations. (How it will fare will be revealed on the March 15 Oscar telecast.) She discussed her groundbreaking career with Sandra L. Richards, managing director and head of Global Sports & Entertainment and Segment Sales & Engagement at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Professional motorcycle drag racer and race car driver Dystany Spurlock is set for the ARCA Menards Series, a key path to the NASCAR Cup Series, on March 28 at Hickory Speedway in Hickory, North Carolina, in pursuit of becoming the first Black woman to compete on NASCAR’s national circuit. She took to the Morgan Stanley stage with Crystal McCrary McGuire, a filmmaker, TV producer, author and entrepreneur.
Those conversations were preceded by introductory remarks from Terri Ferri, managing director and market executive – Soundview Market for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management; and Dawn French, White Plains Hospital chief of staff and senior vice president for marketing and community relations, who also serves as chair of the board of directors of the American Heart Association Westchester/Fairfield chapter. French talked about how her father survived cardiac arrest when nine out of 10 people who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital don’t make it. Heart disease remains the No. 1 killer of men and women worldwide.
Then it was time for the conversations with Spurlock and Carter. Both women gave inklings of what was to come in childhood. The youngest of eight children in a single-parent Springfield, Massachusetts, household, Carter learned to sew and read Simplicity patterns at a local Boys & Girls Club, using her mother’s sewing machine for her creations. After graduating from Springfield’s Technical High School, she attended Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), where a professor prevented her from quitting to look for work by offering her a place to live so she could complete her Bachelor of Arts degree in theater arts.
Hailing from the Richmond, Virginia, area, Spurlock grew up in a racing family, tooling around in her Barbie Jeep and Barbie Corvette. Go-karts at age 5 and riding on the back of her parents’ motorcycle would lead to motorcycle drag racing and a transition to stock cars. Along the way, she even learned how to handle an 18-wheeler.
Talent and training are one thing. Convincing others that you deserve a seat at the proverbial table is another. Spurlock said she encountered disbelievers who couldn’t imagine a woman, who make up only 4% of racers, and a Black woman at that, as a driver. She worked in hospitality and lived for a time in her RV with her 120-pound dog, Drago, chipping away at her dream. Promises of sponsorship were not necessarily kept.
But Spurlock – describing herself as a “girly tomboy” who played tackle football in high school yet also loves fashion, hair, makeup and manicures – told the audience of more than 200 that “(Racing) is what I was created to do. This is my passion.” After all, her parents named her destiny with the unusual spelling for a reason, right? Today, she is supported by MBM Motorsports, which is owned by Carl Long, and sponsored by Foxxtecca.
Carter also talked about Dystany – and destiny. After interning with the Santa Fe Opera, she moved to Los Angeles and a job at the Theater Center, meeting Spike Lee. She would go on to work for him on a number of films, including “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X”; John Singleton (“Rosewood”) and Steven Spielberg (“Amistad”). Her TV work included “Seinfeld,” where she gave Jason Alexander’s persnickety George Costanza his distinctive wire-rimmed glasses. Film, however, has offered her the opportunity to do more in-depth work, like the textured muscular costumes she created for the “Black Panther” films.) (Guys, she said, you’ll never get that look in a gym. You need the costume.)
Exquisite costumes notwithstanding, Carter suggested that each assignment is like an audition, with the designer presenting her ideas to a director, with whom she will work closely. Not every director has specific ideas about costumes. Spike Lee told her that he knew nothing about fashion, she said. What she likes most is for directors to give her descriptives. For Anthony Hopkins’ John Quincy Adams character in “Amistad,” Spielberg said he needed for him to look “adorable” – perhaps not the first word that comes to mind when you think of the sixth president of the United States.
But for a key scene between Hopkins’ Adams and former slave Theodore Joadson, played by Morgan Freeman, Carter said she designed a long dressing gown for Hopkins to wear. When she escorted him to the set, she said that Spielberg told Hopkins, “You look adorable.”
As that anecdote suggests, costume design does not end with approved sketches and a finished product on mannequins. There are many fittings and much accompanying of the actors to the set to watch how they move in costume. An exception, Carter added, was Eddie Murphy, a good friend who nonetheless told her he would give her one hour. (But then, she did dress him as a broccoli stalk in “Daddy Day Care,” an image that drew laughs from the red-clad Morgan Stanley audience.)
Such an intense career leaves little time for work-life balance, which she is now trying to achieve. Still, there probably won’t be much time for sightseeing in England and Italy, where a reworking of “The Thomas Crown Affair,” headlined and directed by “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan, will be filmed, featuring Carter’s costumes.
Costuming, fashion, are important to both interviewees. Spurlock, an influencer who has walked the runway, appeared in Morgan Stanley’s Great Hall in her black and white racing suit, hair, makeup and manicure in place. Because she cannot wear jewelry and makeup on the racetrack, she dots her face with star appliqués in the manner of “Avatar’s” heroine Neytir on race day, as she did for the event.
Sporting a fiery red cape dress offset by strands of pearls, Carter was asked about what she will be wearing to the Oscars. The designer – set to produce the story of Ann Cole Lowe, who created Jacqueline Kennedy’s ivory taffeta gown for her wedding to John F. Kennedy – said she would be dressed in the manner of someone who after 35 years has arrived in her profession.
And that, she said, was all she was going to say about that.
