What happens when a veteran of the costume-design industry—four-time Oscar nominee Jacqueline West—and a newcomer—Julie O’Keefe—combine their powers? The dazzling array of authentic costumes on display in Martin Scorsese’s epic Killers of the Flower Moon.
West is no stranger to ambitious films, having previously worked on Dune, The Revenant, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But Killers presented an exciting opportunity to not only dive into another period, but also explore a Native American culture that has so rarely been accurately represented onscreen. “Film is like time travel, you get to immerse yourself into another culture and another time,” West tells Little Gold Men. “My favorite movies I’ve ever seen are movies I wanted to crawl into and be in.”
Killers of the Flower Moon, which hits theaters this Friday, is based on David Grann’s 2017 book about a series of murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s, when oil had made the tribe incredibly wealthy. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone, the film pulls viewers back to Oklahoma in the 1920s as the tribe scrambles to stop the murder of its people.
For the incredible costumes, West teamed up with O’Keefe, a member of the Osage Nation who served as a costume cultural adviser on the film. They worked closely with Osage artists to create the costumes for Gladstone and the other actors playing members of the community, combining deeply rooted historical clothing with the more modern fashion that accentuated their newly acquired wealth. The pair spoke with Vanity Fair about their research, the importance of the Osage blankets and ribbon weaving, and why this story must be told to a modern audience.
Vanity Fair: Julie, you hadn’t worked on a film before, so what was your first impression when you came onboard Killers of the Flower Moon?
Julie O’Keefe: I was blown away by the amount of research, and I mean thousands of photographs, really broken out into how people are men and women and traditional and modern and modern-traditional—I mean floor to ceiling. It was some of the best wallpaper I ever saw because that’s what it looked like when you walked in there. My community had met with Martin Scorsese and had invited him to dinner and it was a very serious discussion for the citizens of the Osage Nation because this is a topic that’s extremely hard for us to talk about even in our families. There’s a lot of generational trauma that comes with it. So, it was really a project that felt like I was supposed to be a part of. And the reason being that I was there to help represent my people. And there’s really no greater gift than that for me.
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