When Ruth E. Carter received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last month, she became the first costume designer in more than 60 years to be awarded the honor. To anyone who has spent the last year glued to their screen, it seemed about time.

Not just because Ms. Carter became the first Black costume designer to win an Oscar in 2019 when she took home the statuette for “Black Panther.” Or because, for the sequel “Coming 2 America,” she masterminded about 800 different looks, creating a universe of exhilarating pan-border style and using her platform not only to showcase her own designs but to elevate the work of about 30 other designers.

But because, as we have stewed indoors, consuming streaming services like water, living vicariously through storylines, the characters onscreen have taken on more and more importance. They have become companions, distraction, entertainment.

And role models for what to wear.

As the normal cues for dressing have faded into the distance — street life and office life; peer groups and parties — what we have seen onscreen has stepped into the void.

“You can’t go to the store to shop,” said Salvador Pérez, the president of the Costume Designers Guild and the man behind the clothes on “The Mindy Project” and “Never Have I Ever.” “So you shop the screen.”

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