The movie White and Black is gaining recognition in the awards circuit, adding weight to the focus on its costumes. The film received a nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 20th Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), reflecting industry recognition of its performances and overall craft.
The movie has also garnered international attention, earning selections and acclaim at festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography, as well as recognition from the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) and the New York International Film Awards. This growing buzz sets a compelling backdrop for a fashion-centric review of the film's costumes and design, positioning it as a work people are increasingly talking about, not just for its story, but for its technical and visual intelligence.
While widely discussed, the film's wardrobe and costume design still deserve more attention for its key role in expressing character psychology, cultural nuance, and emotion. True to its title, the film's core aesthetic revolves around a monochrome visual language. The deliberately plotted costumes are not merely stylistic choices; they form a deliberate vocabulary that mirrors internal dualities, clarity versus confusion, hope versus fear. The restrained palette ensures costumes never dominate the frame, instead serving the emotional narrative and anchoring the audience firmly in each scene's subtext.
One of the wardrobe's most memorable details is Temi's knee-high zip boots, which transcends its function as footwear. Within Nigerian youth culture, particularly among those familiar with life in the UK, zip boots of Temi's kind often symbolise aspirations, migration dreams, and imagined arrival. This single styling choice captures, in one quiet visual moment, the collective fantasy of many Nigerians who have pictured themselves in pristine white against a backdrop of opportunity and reinvention.
The wardrobe's harmony with production design is especially evident in the space Temi inhabits. The house she enters appears both lived-in and temporary, much like typical student housing for newcomers from abroad. The costumes are realistic and functional, emphasising authenticity and keeping the focus on the emotional journey.
The film also leans into vintage visual touches, seen in fabric textures, muted styling and understated silhouettes. These elements give the film a timeless quality, not driven by nostalgia but by emotional continuity. The wardrobe helps frame memory, inner conflict and psychological thresholds, allowing the visuals to breathe within the story's introspective tone.
At the heart of this carefully considered costume execution is Jadato Design, the stylist responsible for the film's wardrobe direction.
Beyond White and Black, Jadato Design has steadily built visibility within the fashion space through participation in fashion competitions and design showcases, earning recognition that underscores the brand's growing credibility and craftsmanship. This background is evident in the film's styling, which reflects a designer comfortable with both fashion discipline and narrative restraint.
The costume design in White and Black demonstrates strong narrative sensitivity, with wardrobe choices aligning closely with the emotional journeys of the characters. Each outfit feels calibrated to its moment, reinforcing mood rather than competing with performance. As the characters move through fear, hope, restraint and vulnerability, their clothing subtly shifts in tone, fit and simplicity, mirroring internal transformation without the need for overt exposition.
Equally compelling is the film's cultural fluency. The costumes feel grounded in recognisable, lived experiences, particularly those of Nigerians navigating the space between home identity and diaspora dreams. The styling captures quiet aspirations: practical yet hopeful, modest yet meaningful. It reflects how clothing often becomes a bridge between where one comes from and where one hopes to belong.
Perhaps most impressive is the use of subtle symbolism throughout the wardrobe. Minimalist shirts, restrained colour palettes and carefully chosen accessories, like the drum-themed pendant worn by Temi during her struggling moments, all serve a narrative purpose. Items like the white boots function as visual metaphors; symbols of aspiration, fantasy and imagined futures. Nothing feels accidental; every piece contributes to the film's emotional and thematic texture, reinforcing the idea that costume can speak as powerfully as dialogue.
Jadato Design's work on White and Black continues a growing trajectory of merging fashion expertise with storytelling, creating visual identities that linger beyond the screen. White and Black's distinctive costumes, from their monochrome palette to meaningful cultural details, merit consideration for a Costume Design award.
In White and Black, costume design is not ancillary; it is narrative architecture in fabric form. Through muted palettes, culturally resonant symbolism and realistic yet poetic styling, Jadato Design elevates the film's visual storytelling. This is not fashion for spectacle, but costume as character, culture and cinematic poetry.
Joseph Seun Emmanuel is a Nigerian journalist and social commentator with a sharp eye for fashion, culture, and style narratives that shape today’s social scene. View Verified Page
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