iTalent Company®

Johnetta Boone, Costume Designer

A common thread woven throughout the complexities of characters in the Tyler Perry produced film  For Colored Girls, featuring a star studded cast of Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni-Rose, Tessa Thompson and Thandie Newton, is the rich mosaic of relationships, love, dreams- and nightmares composing their lives. Their storylines are played out, with a powerful, emotional intensity, in wardrobes of color creating a buzz of its own. Enter the master designer “behind the seams” of For Colored Girls- Johnetta Boone.

Starting as an aspiring art student at the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts, Boone has served as stylist and designer for the still photography, television, commercial and feature film arenas for more than three decades. Her fashion imprint is brought to bear on designs running the gamut--everything from turn of-the century, classic, contemporary, and retro to various uniforms, including sport attire.

Boone began her career working with such notable photographers as Ruven Afanador and George Holz, while creating spreads for German Vogue, Entertainment Weekly and Us Magazine. She spent many years developing her craft while studying in New York at the Fashion Institute of Technology. With Edith Head as her inspiration, her dream of someday designing images for the motion picture industry soon became her reality. While supporting an Academy Award-winning designer with the cast of Beloved, Boone gained acclaim not just for her captivating style but also a compelling sense of integrity.

Other costume designers have described her as one of the best they’ve ever worked with, bringing to productions more than panache, but also a coveted authority on personal style. Academy-Award winning designer Albert Wolsky was so highly impressed with her that on the film Runaway Bride he gave her carte blanche to recreate her exact design image, including her “personal” hand-made jewelry for actress Joan Cussack. Producer Tim Reid recognized her talent and work ethic and invited her to design for the Showtime Original Series Linc’s.

The nation’s capital served as backdrop for her expert skills when she costume designed for HBO’s original television series K Street, directed by Steven Soderbergh and executive produced by George Clooney. There, she infused flair into the bland Washington, D.C. political arena. Political consultant Mary Matalin was so in love with the designs Johnetta created for her character that when the series ended, she carried it over into her personal life by purchasing each and every piece.

Boone’s versatility was also captured in baseball uniforms that she designed for the sports movie Mickey (written by John Grisham and directed by Hugh Wilson of Guarding Tess), boxing attire for Showtime’s original pilot The Contender (also directed by Hugh Wilson), and firefighter uniforms for the History Channel’s recently produced docu-drama Countdown To Ground Zero, which retells the 9/11 tragedies during the last 102 pivotal minutes.

Boone’s design mastery is also displayed in period attire like 1940’s pieces in The Notebook and Cadillac Records,featuring Beyonce and covering 1940 to the late 1960’s. She has also designed for actors such as Sam Shephard, Lynne Redgrave, John Malkovich, Kathy Baker, Maria Bello and Emily Blunt. Her work has been featured in numerous regional and national television commercials as well as the pages of the book “The Color of Fashion.”

A hard-working professional who loves her craft?  Yes. A person wrapped in the New York/Hollywood culture? No.  Boone not only grew up in Washington, DC but continues to live in the DC area, maintaining a grounded lifestyle as a suburban wife and mother of two children.

Yet, based on the growing Oscar buzz surrounding For Colored Girls, Boone is now poised to enjoy game-changing success in her field despite being anchored far from the traditional entertainment epicenters.