“Killers of the Flower Moon” Osage Clothes Marketing consultant Can pay It Ahead – WWD

“From my perspective, they’re not costumes. Everything was authentic and is something we’re still wearing today,” mentioned Osage clothes marketing consultant Julie O’Keefe of participating with dress fashion designer Jacqueline West and 20 Osage artisans to craft seems for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in theaters now.

In accordance with David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction hold “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the Martin Scorsese film tells the appalling true tale of participants of the oil-rich Osage tribe who have been murdered beneath suspicious instances right through the Twenties. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert DeNiro and Jesse Plemons. 

Authenticity in illustration of the Osage was once an important to Scorsese, mentioned West. “Once a week I would talk to Marty, and I sensed his one desire, and the reason he wanted to shoot on the Osage nation and involve chief Standing Bear and the tribal government, having dinners with them and getting their input, was to create a certain trust.”

O’Keefe, who grew up at the Osage reservation in Pawhuska, Okla., had the fitting enjoy — first operating at an area get dressed store that were round because the oil growth, upcoming finding out type vending and dealing in product building in Washington, D.C., and returning house lately when she started purchasing for the First American citizens Museum store in Oklahoma Town.

She began as a expert to West, however ended up staying on via all of the manufacturing, the use of most of the artists she’d established relationships with during the museum to build items for the film.

“After the movie, I went on to work as an Indigenous consultant on ‘American Primeval’ and convinced Netflix to put 40 percent of their budget — costume, prop and set — into artisans, including teepee makers…I realized I had stumbled into a mission of wanting to showcase Native artisans,” O’Keefe mentioned.

For “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Supernaw, a chief Oklahoma silversmith, crafted most of the unique shawl slides old by means of Osage males. One is formed like a middle, some other a part moon with a celebrity, “which is a Native church symbol,” O’Keefe explains. “Different slides tell different stories.”

Blankets are virtually a personality in and of themselves within the movie. Non-Local owned Pendleton recreated 1,500 designs from the ’20s for the manufacturing, right down to the original ’20s labels. However the ribbon-work blankets, together with one old by means of Mollie (Lily Gladstone) have been made by means of Marie Lookout.

“The Lookouts are well known for ribbon work,” mentioned O’Keefe. “A lot of them were made with French ribbon that we traded for. That blanket has 27 yards of ribbon on it…You wear ribbon blankets to honor someone, to show up as a diplomat or delegation doing business, or to honor the family on family days,” she mentioned.

Molly Murphy Adams was once answerable for making 3 hand-beaded blankets in simply 5 weeks’ presen.

“Molly Murphy Adams, who’s Oglala Lakota, is very well known for museum quality bead work,” O’Keefe mentioned, pulling out a tuxedo jacket from her personal closet to blow their own horns beaded patches made by means of Murphy Adams. “Whilst you walk into her studio, she has all of those beads that she’s amassed arranged by means of nation and time…And you’ve got to like the ingenuity of artists. After I walked in, she had the two-yard yarn material I’d given rolled over a pond noodle and 40 needles pre-threaded with all of her beads that have been going like a system.

“It’s those skills that everyone complains that we’ve shipped overseas but if you look in your communities in every single state in this country, you’re gonna find Native artists. They’re still using their hands producing these things. And a lot of it is generational set at a kitchen table. That’s the fabric of who we are here in the United States, and we overlook it.”

That craft is what O’Keefe is dedicated to showcasing extra widely via movie, TV and now retail. She’s partnered with fashion designer and coach Jessica Harjo and a couple of alternative Osage artists and curators to unhidden a pop-up store referred to as Indigichic in Tulsa, Okla., that includes fresh Local American artisans’ office.

“What we were wanting was an immersive experience…focusing on the 39 nations of Oklahoma, fashion and accessories,” O’Keefe mentioned, including that Gladstone wore considered one of Harjo’s clothes to the Osage premiere of the movie.

One in all pieces within the bind is a hand-painted parfleche belt by means of Katelynn Pipestone. “If you want to see the Louis Vuitton of Indigichic, this is it,” O’Keefe mentioned. “We are wanting to showcase all these amazing artisans who are doing things that can be worn in a contemporary way. That belt belongs on the red carpet.”

Indigichic can be unhidden till Jan. 13, and a few museums have expressed pastime in web hosting the pop-up going forward.

Apple Studios, which sponsored the movie, has an exhibition of the movie’s costumes at its Culver Town, Calif., campus titled “Beyond the Scene,” which contains 17 of the Osage seems, and is unhidden Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 by means of reservation at killersoftheflowermoonexhibit.com.

And O’Keefe is dedicated to proceeding to pay her enjoy ahead.

“Natives have been waiting a very long time to have the proper representation in Hollywood. And this project has all the authentic bells and whistles you would ever want because that is the level that Marty put in it. He surrounded himself with people that are truly committed to authenticity with integrity, and I think that is now where Hollywood is standing…We want to be represented the way we should be. And they want to represent us that way. The best history tellers are artists, and there is a new world for Hollywood to open up to include those artists.”