Madam C.J. Walker’s Style Inspires the Costuming in Self Made

Madam C.J. Walker (played by Octavia Spencer toasts her admittance into the National Negro Business League (Courtesy of Netflix).

Did you know that one of the first self-made female millionaires in the United States was black? Less than one generation from slavery, the extraordinary Madam C.J. Walker transformed herself into a beauty mogul by selling namesake black hair products. Her story is worthy of a Hollywood screenplay—or the four-part Netflix series titled Self Made that premiered two weeks ago.

Costume designer Karyn Wagner was assigned the task of illuminating Walker’s life through fashion. The series had been on Wagner’s radar for years, and she made sure she was a candidate for the position. “I was obsessed with helping tell Madame C. J. Walker’s story,” says Wagner. Wagner is a veteran costume designer who grew up on Hollywood backlots. She has made her name costuming period films and television series, including Underground and Eve’s Bayou. Given her work experience on these films, she was a perfect fit as the costume designer of Self Made.

Self Made is set during the last two decades of Walker’s life and at the height of her success. Therefore, Wagner was tasked with showing Walker’s growing sophistication and new position as an entrepreneur. One of Wagner’s favorite looks from the series is a sky blue walking suit that Walker wears to the National Negro Business League. Wagner sourced the suit’s fabric from a sari that she found in Artesia (or Little India), a neighborhood known for its large South Asian population. Wagner designed a matching oversized hat so that she can make an entrance. This is just one example of the fine details—which many viewers might overlook—that Wagner used to show Walker’s growing ability to afford clothing that reflected her metamorphosis from a washerwoman to a successful entrepreneur.

Wagner’s moodboard for the costume that Madam C.J. Walker wore to impress potential investors (Courtesy of Karyn Wagner).

Madam C.J. Walker (played by Octavia Spencer) flanked by her husband Charles James Walker (played by Blair Underwood) and her business partner Freeman Briley Ransom (played by Kevin Carroll) (Courtesy of Netflix).

Thorough research is key to Wagner’s preparation for every new project. She read A’Lelia Bundles’ biography of Walker Self Made (from which the series is based), conducted archival research, and scoured the Internet for images from the period, which she then pinned on a Pinterest board. As a result of this research, Wagner referenced a few photographs of Walker in elaborate millinery. Elite women were not often seen in public with their heads uncovered, and Walker used ostentatious hats to showcase her wealth. At the turn of the century, hats were expensive, and most people could only afford a few of them. As a result of her research, Wagner matched Walker’s hats to each of her outfits as a marker of her affluence.

Wagner also drew from her own family history when costuming Self Made. She says, “Walker’s concern with self-representation reminds me of my own family history. I’m a second-generation American. All four of my grandparents were immigrants. The first generation is very concerned with financial stability and ‘having food on the table, a roof over one’s head,’ as my parents used to say. We can also think of Walker as being first generation. She was from the first generation of African Americans who was born free. She too was very concerned with careful self-presentation.” Considering Walker’s attention to respectable self-fashioning, Wagner outfitted Octavia Spencer (who plays Walker) in more conservative silhouettes.

Tiffany Haddish as A’Lelia Walker (Courtesy of Netflix).

Wagner describes Walker’s personal style (and, consequently, her costuming of Spencer) as current, yet classic. Though Wagner’s styling of Walker is reserved, she took more liberties costuming Walker’s daughter, A’Lelia Walker (played by Tiffany Haddish). “Walker made sure A’Lelia wanted for nothing,” says Wagner. This is reflected in A’Lelia’s more youthful and fashionable attire.

According to Wagner, there were three important men in Walker’s life: her third husband Charles Joseph Walker, her son-in-law John Robinson, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove, but she took Charles Joseph’s name as her professional appellation and was thenceforth known as “Madam C. J. Walker.” There are no photos of Charles Joseph Walker, so Wagner made conjectures about his self-styling based on biographical information. Charles Joseph never quite matched the success of this wife, so Wagner imagined him being frugal, repeating the same suits with small variations here and there. While Walker dresses increasingly more fashionable, Charles Joseph (who is played by Blair Underwood) wears various iterations of the same suit throughout the series.

Wagner’s moodboard for John Robinson’s wardrobe (Courtesy of Karyn Wagner).

A’Lelia’s first husband, John Robinson (played by J. Alphonse Nicholson), was also an important presence in the film’s portrayal of Walker’s life. “J. Alphonse Nicholson really found his character in the costuming. He became John Robinson in the fitting room,” says Wagner. Wagner describes Robinson’s style as “jaunty” and “rakish.” Wagner purposefully left his hems too long and made the suits slightly ill-fitting. “His clothes looked good on him not because of the cut or color, but because of how he wore them,” says Wagner.

Finally, Madam C. J. Walker maintained a friendship with W. E. B. Du Bois (played by Cornelius Smith, Jr.). Du Bois was known for his dapper sense of style, and Wagner referenced his reputation for distinguished self-presentation in her costuming. Moreover, she referenced photographs in the American Negro exhibition that Du Bois curated for the 1900 Paris Exposition. The exhibit showcased images of various aspects of African American life through 363 images of people, their homes, professional organizations, schools, churches, and institutions of higher learning. All the subjects in the exhibit were impeccably dressed in the latest late Victorian/Edwardian fashions of the turn of the century.

LeBron James is an executive director of Self Made, but that is not Wagner’s only connection to the world of basketball. One of Wagner’s breakout costuming gigs was The Notebook. The late Kobe Bryant gifted his wife, Vanesssa, the blue dress Rachel McAdams’s character, Allie Hamilton, wore in the 2004 film for a Valentine’s Day gift. Vanessa tearfully mentioned the gift during Kobe’s memorial service on February 24, 2020. “I never forget the power of costuming to touch people’s lives in unexpected ways. It was an honor to play a small part in the Bryant’s life together. And, likewise, it was an honor to help bring the story of Madam C. J. Walker to life,” says Wagner.