The Six Triple Eight (2024)

The 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only predominantly Black U.S. Women’s Army Corps unit sent overseas during World War II, and this Netflix movie, The Six Triple Eight (2024) tells the highlights of their fairly miraculous story to improve war morale by managing a huge backlog of mail for the military.

The way the story opens, you might think it’s a cute, fictional, wartime romance. But the young woman at the center of this story, Lena Derriecott (Ebony Obsidian) is a real person, as are many of the characters. It’s in this early part of the movie that there are some costumes worth talking about. This is during the the middle of World War II on the homefront near Philadelphia, and costume designer Karyn Wagner needed to show Lena’s naiveté at first. She told Essence:

“I wanted to show the progression of her coming of age in high school. So I started with flat shoes and clothing that is geared more for a younger 16, not as sophisticated, but an innocent young woman. And because she’s the most obviously patriotic of all these women. So I kept her themes to red, white, and blue. For the train scene, she’s also got a little heel on. So it’s just like this, she’s [saying]: “Now I’ve arrived. Now I’m becoming the woman I was always growing up to be.”

Also important are the clothes for Lena’s mother and aunt who raise her. Wagner continued:

“There’s so many threads that get tied up in the aunt and the mother, and part of that is [to] make do and reuse. Part of that is funneling every penny they have into Lena. And part of it is just that these dresses are still perfectly serviceable. [Since] it wasn’t a fast fashion world, they probably made their clothes. So were they going to make new clothes that were fashionable or were they going to put their energy into being caterers? There was a lot of multi-layered decision-making there. But at the same time, I used brighter colors and happier prints for them because I didn’t want them to look depressed or sad, I didn’t want to portray any of that. I wanted them to represent women who maybe hadn’t had everything go their way in their life but were generally optimistic and happy to be here.”

When Lena signs up to be for the Women’s Army Corps, she meets more young Black women from around the country, and they’re all sent to Georgia for training. On the train and as the women register at the military camp are the last times we see their colorful civilian clothing.

Their commander is Major Charity Adams (Kerry Washington), extremely tough but fair and determined for her battalion to serve overseas. The training portrayed in the film is accurate, with veteran Gladys Carter quoted on the National Museum of the U.S. Army site:

“We had to climb ropes … and come down the side of a ship as would if it were sinking. We had to do some crawling under wire … We had to put on gas masks.”

They were prepared for it all. Of course, the rest of the costumes from here on out are uniforms, so not exciting! But accurate, at least. The costume designer told Essence that she had to use factories in several countries to create all the uniforms:

“We took the old uniforms that we could find, and we sort of based the patterns on them, but then we changed them, also because African-American women tend to be curvier.”

The uniform size / shape is also noted within the story as a reminder of the racism of the time. Because that’s not glossed over. Major Adams reminds her women that they have to work twice as hard as white women because they’re representing the race and everything’s stacked against them.

Finally the 6888 gets their orders, in part because of Mary McLeod Bethune (Oprah Winfrey), activist and founder the National Council of Negro Women and close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (Susan Sarandon). Costume designer Karyn Wagner talked about creating McLeod Bethune’s look:

“I must have had a hundred images of her. And what came through was a woman who nodded to fashion. [She was a] strong, amazing woman. She loved lace collars and she loved hats. I wanted to build something that said, ‘I can afford really nice things. I choose to keep what works and not change for fashion’s sake.’ The other thing I did was the lace on her collar is from the 1890s. I wanted to mix some traditions, some history, and some current day shapes from the ’40s [to] make Oprah look as best as I can.”

Here’s Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt around the same period:

From training through the battalion’s assignment in Europe, all the costumes are uniforms, but the story is fascinating. The movie shows how these women were given a task considered nearly impossible, with a tight six-month deadline, and over-achieved in the end. There’s no spoilers in history, so you know it’s going to turn out well, but how they succeed is creative and entertaining to watch. The flick also has a great ’40s soundtrack, and a cute jitterbug scene is thrown in when the WACs host the Negro soldiers, and the dancing is choreographed by the stellar Debbie Allen.

There’s a lovely bit at the end of the film featuring the real Lena Derriecott King, who died at age 99, right after production ended. The movie also has a montage of all the other members of the 6888th and noting that the U.S. Army’s Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia was renamed in part after Charity Adams.

 

 

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