It is the age of jazz.
The sound of swing electrifies the speakeasies: Ellington and Armstrong, Fitzgerald and Holliday. It is an age of style and glamor, sleek Art Deco, sequins, and flappers. It is an age of crime—of rum rummers and gin joints, bootleggers, gangsters, and Capone; in Europe, the thunder of war rumbles in the distance. It is an age in need of heroes. In remote Wakanda, Queen T’Challa answers the call.
This image of actor Whitney Dottery was commissioned by designer Erin Gallagher to show off the Jazz Age Black Panther costume Gallagher had created and is one in a series of her “gender bent Jazz Age superhero” costume line that thus far includes versions of Marvel’s Captain America, Quicksilver, Loki, and Thor.
The Project
Erin Gallagher is a self-described “history, vintage style, and retro fashion nerd; a comic book and B-movie enthusiast; and ‘magic’ geek who loves all things classical and incorporates classical elegance into everything she creates.” Apart from her Jazz Age line, Erin has commissioned Distant Era to photograph several of her other costumes and has shared some of the background on this project.
A League of Their Own
According to Gallagher, this series was born in the wake of the Me Too and BLM movements from her desire to give voice to people she felt the canon had left out: women of color and female-identifying people in general. Though there are many female-identifying Marvel heroes, at the time she conceptualized this project Gallagher felt that most only served as background characters or as pretty set dressing for male characters.
Gallagher wanted to create an aesthetic where women could be both powerful and glamorous. She chose the nineteen twenties to honor her suffragette family members. “Riotgrrrls in their own right,” she says. Gallagher continues:
“The flapper was a statement of anti-fashion … that became fashion. It wasn’t ‘look at me and want me,’ but rather ‘look at me and take me seriously’ and ‘look at me and fear me.’ They were breaking gender norms, and they were the pioneers of smashing the patriarchy.”
Gallagher chose Black Panther and Captain America to be the keystone characters in this arch because there’s nothing in the original canon that says either has to be a man:
“In my design, I created nods to the canon that I felt were important (Black Panther claws are jeweled glass beads and encased in silver and gunmetal, and the signature Captain America shield doubles as a handbag) while also making a statement that you really don’t need either of those things to be a hero.”
Jazz Age T’Challa
For this project, Gallagher challenged herself to make the costumes without buying anything new. This meant she had to employ many historical stitching and antique beading styles to get the look she wanted. “I wanted rich textures and a lot of bling,” she says. “The outfits had to be stunning and sumptuous and make a statement on their own without the human wearing it.”
“To me, clothing is empowerment,” Gallagher says. “Sure, T’Challa was a king. But Queen Elizabeth I once said, ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too …’
Being royal. Being strong. Being fashionable. These are not only male things. They don’t really have a gender.
Erin Gallagher
In this project, Gallagher wanted that sense of high status, as well as to elevate the colleagues and friends she had cast in these roles, especially women of color.
Check out Erin Rose Design on Facebook, Instagram, and (soon) on her site!
The Photograph
When Erin Gallagher described a Jazz Age style costume, rather than simply catalog her work, Distant Era wanted to bring a Jazz Age light to it: the feeling of a jazz club with, say, Billie Holiday under a spotlight. We used a single light on Whitney’s face and placed a grid on it to keep the light focused like a spotlight; there may have been another light to gently fill in some of the shadows.
We began with a fashion gray background, and those images were acceptable, but they seemed like they could benefit from more contrast. The end credits in Black Panther were purple, so we placed a light behind Whitney and added a purple gel to it. Since the main light was focused on Whitney’s face, it didn’t interfere with the light on the background, and we were pleased with the results. After adding some cleanup and texture in Photoshop, we arrived at the image above.
Wakanda forever!
Follow Me