Paul Tazewell won the Academy Award for Costume Design for Wicked at the 97th Academy Awards on March 2, 2025. The win made him the first Black man to receive the costume-design Oscar—a milestone in a career spent using clothing to define characters and build worlds.
What Oscar did Paul Tazewell win?
Tazewell won the Academy Award for Costume Design for Wicked. The Academy’s official record lists the result for the 97th ceremony, held March 2, 2025: Academy Awards: 2025 ceremony.
Wicked received 10 nominations and won two awards that night, according to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA): UNCSA on Tazewell’s win.
How did Tazewell make Oscars history?
Tazewell became the first Black man to win the Oscar for costume design. He had previously been the first African American man nominated in the category, for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021), according to UNCSA. That distinction is specifically about Black men: Ruth E. Carter had already won the category for Black Panther, as PBS and the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) note.
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In his acceptance speech, Tazewell said, “I’m the first black man to receive the costume design award…I’m so proud of this.” The CDG published the excerpt in its account of the ceremony: Costume Designers Guild on Tazewell’s historic win.
UNCSA also records his thanks to the Academy and to “Oz-ian” muses Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, whose characters he brought to life. The honor marked a major moment in a career spanning stage and screen: UNCSA says Tazewell has worked in costume design for more than 30 years across Broadway, film, television, dance and opera, while Good Morning America reported that he described his career as more than 35 years of designing. Those are the respective outlets’ descriptions, not a single reconciled count.
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How did Tazewell design the costumes for Wicked?
Tazewell approached the costumes as part of the film’s world-building, not as decoration added after the characters were established. In a PBS NewsHour interview before the ceremony, he explained: “My focus is who these characters are and how they dress themselves and how to create a world that makes sense within itself and provides a magical environment for this story to exist within.”
He designed more than a thousand costumes for the film, according to the CDG. Their details draw on forms and textures that help make Oz feel coherent while allowing its characters to remain distinct. CBS reported that Tazewell explored spirals and mushroom textures, alongside patterns from nature and references to M.C. Escher. “That was where the idea of the spiral came into play for ‘Wicked,’ and the idea of the texture of mushrooms,” he told CBS. “I am working to align those elements.”
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Clothing as character and storytelling
Rather than treating a costume as a label for a character, Tazewell described clothing as a way to make each person visually specific. “All of it is about telling stories through what my medium is, which is clothing, and making those characters visually more interesting or more specific,” he told CBS. In practice, that means considering what a character might choose to wear as well as how color, pattern and texture contribute to the larger visual environment.
Inheriting and reinventing Oz
The film’s Oz arrives with a long visual and literary history. PBS traces Wicked through L. Frank Baum’s 1900 book, the 1939 film, Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel and the Broadway musical before the film adaptation. Tazewell’s design had to feel connected to that inheritance while creating a magical world that worked on its own terms. As he told PBS, the aim was for the details to become immersive enough that viewers believed in the world and felt drawn into it.
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Why did Tazewell describe the win as significant?
Tazewell has spoken about the importance of bringing his own perspective to his work. In the PBS interview, he said, “What I bring to the event is my own life experience and how I walk through life as well,” connecting that perspective to “being a Black man walking through life in America.”
After the ceremony, he told Good Morning America, “This is the pinnacle of my career.” He also said that over more than 35 years of work, he had not seen a Black male designer he could look to as an inspiration. His Oscar therefore recognized the specific achievement of Wicked’s costume design and carried personal meaning tied to representation in the field.
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What should viewers notice in Wicked’s costumes?
- Character choices: Consider how each character’s clothing suggests who they are and how they present themselves.
- Color and texture: Notice how patterns and tactile details help distinguish individuals while contributing to Oz’s atmosphere.
- Visual continuity: Look for recurring forms, including spirals and nature-inspired textures, that connect costumes to the world around them.
- Reinvention: The film draws on a familiar Oz lineage, but its costumes also help establish the adaptation’s own visual identity.
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