When Jacqueline West received the phone call that Martin Scorsese wanted to work with her, she knew she couldn't pass it up. 'Killers of the Flower Moon' costume designer Jacqueline West and lead Osage wardrobe consultant Julie O'Keefe talk about how they crafted the looks for the film that play a major part in helping to tell the story. As providing authenticity and representation through the wardrobe was extremely important to West and O'Keefe, they explain the process of collaborating with Pendleton to collect the perfect pieces, incorporating traditional folding styles of Osage blankets and more.
Director: Juliet Lopez
Director of Photography: AJ Young
Editor: Michael Suyeda; Evan Allan
Talent: Jacquleine West & Julie O'Keefe
Producer: Funmi Sunmonu
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi and Kevin Balash
Camera Operators: Shay Eberle-Gunst & Osiris Larkin
Sound : Kara Johnson
Production Assistants: Liza Antonova & John Brodsky
Set Designer: Cedar Jocks
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Jovan James
Supervising Editor: Erica Dillman
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Director: Juliet Lopez
Director of Photography: AJ Young
Editor: Michael Suyeda; Evan Allan
Talent: Jacquleine West & Julie O'Keefe
Producer: Funmi Sunmonu
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Emebeit Beyene
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi and Kevin Balash
Camera Operators: Shay Eberle-Gunst & Osiris Larkin
Sound : Kara Johnson
Production Assistants: Liza Antonova & John Brodsky
Set Designer: Cedar Jocks
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Jovan James
Supervising Editor: Erica Dillman
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 I got a phone call from a producer saying that Martin Scorsese would like to meet with me.
00:06 When I got off the phone, I ran upstairs to my husband. I started jumping up and down.
00:11 He said, "This is as good as it gets now. You do this one and then you can quit."
00:15 I'm Jacqueline West. I'm the costume designer of Killers of the Flower Moon.
00:19 My name is Julie O'Keefe. I'm Osage,
00:22 and I was the lead Osage wardrobe consultant on Killers of the Flower Moon.
00:26 Today we're going to be taking you through our creative process on how we came up with the costumes for this film.
00:32 I had heard about Killers of the Flower Moon when I was doing The Revenant with Leo.
00:42 It was already in the center of his mind.
00:44 Jackie's team called me and asked if I would come in.
00:48 And when I saw all of these floor-to-ceiling storyboards
00:53 of how Jacqueline had set up all the research for traditional men,
00:59 traditional women like Lizzie Q, modern clothing,
01:02 I really knew then the level of authenticity and the bar that had been set.
01:07 She understood us.
01:09 And that is when I knew that it was going to be really a successful collaboration with us.
01:14 The Osage were rich enough to afford home movies.
01:19 At $1,800 a minute, the only other people really who could afford them were maybe the British royal family.
01:25 So they were a wealth of information for me.
01:28 So it kind of started there with collecting, like Julie said,
01:31 I probably had 2,000 pieces of research on my walls.
01:36 What Julie helped me with when she arrived was sorting out
01:41 who would be the best people to make the specific items that are specific to the Osage.
01:47 The community took great pride in the fact that we were focusing down on the authenticity level,
01:53 and they took pride in being a part of this.
01:55 And so the people that we use to do this and the artisans are actually people that
02:00 understand this history very well, and they're carrying that on through their generations.
02:04 You've asked for additional monies of $752 to pay a medical bill for an abscess?
02:12 Yes, sir.
02:14 As we start talking about Molly and her traditional wardrobe,
02:17 I'd like to just shout out Pendleton Blanket Company and Pendleton, Oregon,
02:21 because they knew which colors they had sold to the Osage.
02:28 They also had the loom charts for how they wove the blankets and what the stripes look like then,
02:34 and they reproduced them, probably 1,000 blankets for the movie.
02:38 Blankets and shawls for women, when you see how they're wearing those,
02:43 it's telling you about a life event that is happening.
02:46 So you'll see in the movie different ways that everything is folded.
02:51 So let's say, for instance, this is a blanket where she's wearing this to go in and see
02:56 Pits Beattie the Guardian. And so she's going in to talk business.
03:00 So she's going to wear this in a traditional style.
03:03 Now there are two ways that you can put this on for a formal way to wear it,
03:07 and the fringe can go inside, but from the research photos that Jacqueline had pulled,
03:12 these particular sisters wore their fringing on the outside.
03:16 So for this one, she's wearing it in more of a formal style.
03:20 If she were going to wear it in more, where she needed to use her arms more or her hands,
03:25 it would be folded under one arm, and this would be, it would be flipped back
03:29 so that she's able to use her hands. The same for the shawls.
03:33 But for the most part, this is how Molly was always photographed.
03:38 We have here two Wabanka pins, which is saying that she's married.
03:41 Single is the grandmother, two is you're married, and three, you're single.
03:45 When you move up here, you see she has on her black choker bead necklace,
03:50 which was really a staple in Osage clothing at the time.
03:54 And to this day, the silhouette that you see here has not changed in over 150 years.
03:59 The technology of the materials has changed, but it has not changed.
04:03 And we wear this today.
04:04 Then up here, she's wearing a traditional earring, and this is called ball and cone.
04:10 And these are turned by the silversmith.
04:12 And these are also worn in dresses and different things,
04:15 but for Osage, we don't put them on our clothes.
04:17 We put them on our ears, our men wear them.
04:20 This is very luxurious because she has four.
04:22 A lot of times you only see a single.
04:24 This is just a show of luxury and opulence.
04:27 An Osage delegation in the early 1800s went to Washington, D.C.,
04:37 and this was the military coat of the time.
04:42 The Osage chief admired it on one of the high-ranking officers in Jefferson's entourage.
04:51 When he admired it, Jefferson said, "Take that off and give it to the chief," right,
04:56 as a peace offering.
04:58 But the Osage are quite statuesque as a people.
05:02 The coat was too small for the chief.
05:05 He took it home and gave it to his daughter,
05:07 and she happened to be getting married and decided that would be her wedding dress, so to speak.
05:13 So it became decorated with French ribbons, a lot of trade items with the finger-woven belt.
05:22 They probably added a lot of gold braid and gold ribbon.
05:26 This is real ribbon from the 1920s that we used.
05:29 She layered it with traditional Osage and took something that was quite military and warlike
05:35 and turned it into this beautiful outfit for her wedding.
05:38 And forevermore, it became the Osage wedding dress.
05:42 This is Molly's costume, but typically this was for an arranged marriage.
05:47 Starting here with, here's a choker bead necklace under here.
05:51 Under this coat, you would have maybe two shirts.
05:54 You would have a set of pins.
05:56 You have one finished finger-woven belt, and it goes on around and the tails hang in the back.
06:04 Then you have a skirt under here, but also in this particular scene,
06:10 we have an Osage ribbonwork blanket.
06:13 And so this is something of true luxury.
06:17 This particular blanket has something close to 22 yards of ribbon in it.
06:22 You see a cut and fold pattern that is happening here, and you see this hand.
06:26 Hands, a lot of times, are on our blankets.
06:29 They're not on our skirts, but she's giving this away as a treasure to someone.
06:34 And so if you see the hand and it's under, right under here,
06:38 that means either the hand of my family or the hand of my friend.
06:41 But if you see right here, it's the hand of my enemy.
06:45 When you come to the belt here, this is quintessential Osage,
06:50 and it's called Osage finger weaving.
06:53 It's unfinished because the family that you're giving it to is going to finish the tails on this.
06:58 This hat, when the first delegation went to the East Coast,
07:03 was probably admired, and the top hat came back with the wedding coat.
07:08 But to make it her own, the women of the tribe decorated it with hackle feathers,
07:14 dyed hackle feathers, and French silk ribbon, and German silver right here.
07:22 It became this magnificent fashion item.
07:26 It was really Vogue magazine worthy.
07:28 So if you see on the back here, she's got this beautiful piece of French ribbon
07:37 that is still used within our clothing today.
07:41 When you see us in our traditional clothing, we'll always have a piece of ribbon on the back,
07:45 and she has this antique brooch that's holding it.
07:48 This, often from their travels or trips to New York,
07:54 they would buy these beautiful brooches from Tiffany's or from wherever they went,
08:00 Paris antique stores.
08:02 And sometimes the Big Hill Trading.
08:03 And sometimes Big Hill Trading, yes.
08:05 There was Big Hill Trading in Fairfax,
08:08 and they were like the first department store in Oklahoma, but it was to the Osages.
08:12 Anything you could get, a Tiffany's counter, haute couture clothing,
08:16 anything that an Osage wanted or dreamed of,
08:18 it was in the Big Hill if you couldn't get to New York or Paris.
08:22 He always used to tell the white men just to call him Jimmy,
08:24 but I always called him by his proper name, Nakaise White.
08:28 I had never heard of the Osage until I worked in Oklahoma on a Terrence Malick movie.
08:34 It's always going to stay with me.
08:35 This movie, the friendships that I've made with the Osage, they're in my heart.
08:41 It's a sacred story, and I'm so glad it's finally being told.
08:45 A day doesn't go by that I don't think about the experience.
08:48 For me, it was an opportunity to help tell a story
08:53 about a really tragic part of history that's very difficult for Osages to talk about with each other.
09:00 I look at these pieces as part of my life,
09:03 because these are incorporated and ingrained into Osage life.
09:08 This movie became a feel, even though it's an epic movie, of a community project.
09:15 I worked in the costume department, that we had people that worked within set,
09:20 and within language, and historians.
09:23 We had an entire team of Osages that were really invited in and asked to come in,
09:28 because Marty truly wanted authenticity.
09:32 This is a recipe to how to tell a successful, authentic story,
09:37 and to actually represent Native nations in Hollywood the proper and right way.
09:44 And for me, that is everything, because this story doesn't just help my tribe.
09:50 It helps all of us in any country.
09:54 Thank you, Vanity Fair, for having us.
09:56 And we hope that you enjoy Killers of the Flower Moon.
09:59 [Music]