By the 1920s, the period depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon, many members had adopted what we think of as familiar fashions of the era: drop-waisted flapper dresses, cloche hats, furs. But when it came time to get married, just as it does now, tradition reigned. In the sequence in the film where Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) marries Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), she wears a red jacket with gold braid that you might expect to see on Thomas Jefferson, not a bride in Oklahoma. 

That’s because the coat literally did originate with Thomas Jefferson. “The wedding coat actually dates all the way back to a delegation of Osages that went to see Thomas Jefferson,” says Julie O’Keefe, an Osage member and design expert who served as cultural consultant on the film. “The chief looks over and he sees this military coat on this general that’s standing next to Thomas Jefferson, and he really admires it. And so when they get ready to leave, Thomas Jefferson looks at that general and says, ‘Take that coat off and give it to him.’”

The story of how the military coat went from an Osage chief to something traditionally worn by Osage women on their wedding day is a complex one—and the kind of story O’Keefe, who initially planned to spend just 10 days on the film’s set, was uniquely suited to bring into Killers of the Flower Moon. O’Keefe joined Gladstone and the film’s costume designer Jacqueline West for a conversation on the first-ever live version of Little Gold Men, hosted at the NeueHouse in Hollywood and presented by Vanity Fair and Apple Original Films. The episode—which you can listen to below—begins with a roundtable discussion of the Oscar race and the latest glut of awards shows, with David Canfield, Richard Lawson, and Katey Rich weighing in on everything from the tight best-actor race to how better set design might have prevented the slap in 2022. Then Gladstone, West, and O’Keefe take the stage to look back at some of the most significant costume moments in Killers of the Flower Moon, from the blankets worn by the Osage delegation when they travel to Washington, DC, to Gladstone’s wrap gift from West that accidentally made it onscreen. 

Read a partial transcript of the conversation below, and subscribe to Little Gold Men on Apple podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. 

Katey Rich: Julie, you’ve talked about how you were brought into this movie for I think 10 days to be a clothing consultant. But it seems like from the very beginning you knew it was going to be a much longer process. So how did that process work where you and Jacqueline began working together on this and build the partnership that you have now? 

Julie O’Keefe: I just knew that it was going to be a situation where you’re looking at particular research photos of which Jackie had thousands. But within those photographs of these historic Osages, you’re really looking at the subtleties of who they are and how they’re representing themselves out into the world. And so if you have someone like a Chief Bonnicastle, he’s going to be wearing this very long style blanket, but it tells you that he’s a man of importance. They have certain things that they’re wearing for these particular situations, and each one of those is going to be placed on them and folded differently for whatever they’re doing. Mollie goes to see Pitts Beatty, she’s wearing a shawl. She’s letting him know, I’ve come to do business with you. 

You have a delegation of Osages, men and women to Washington, DC, to talk to President Coolidge. And so what’s happening is you have this power suit that’s really being worn, and they’re walking en masse to let them know, we are here to do business with you. We are wearing our very best and we’re showing you who we are.  I can’t imagine what they must have thought at the White House when they saw them coming in. And so we do those same things today when we go on our own visits to the White House. I’ve been to the White House three times in my ribbon work blanket. It’s one of those where I’m honoring the person that I’m with, but I’m also telling them I’m here as an individual showing you who I am. And that's what we were portraying in the movie.

Well Jacqueline I could ask you what Julie brought to your partnership in terms of knowledge, but I think she just showed us. But I was really struck what you said before about how when you're building costumes for characters, you build them a closet, like what Mollie would’ve had in her closet. And Lily, you were able to choose what she would have worn. I imagine, as an actor, that helps you immensely. How does that process work?

Lily Gladstone: Yeah, we would talk about it quite a bit. It usually came down to the shoes, because Jackie had these gorgeous shoes built that Mollie would’ve had made custom with the money that she had—and the shoes that you wear in town when you’re going to go meet with your guardian, you wear the closed toe heel, the European or American style shoe. And then also just tracking how Mollie was feeling with her illness, with diabetes and with her pregnancy and when the mocs would go on. So a lot of times that's kind of what the conversation would come down to. 

Jacqueline West: But it was also, there were a lot of conversations about how you would wear the shawl. If you’re working with a consummate actress like Lily, they really find the character very early on. And I’ve always said that costume was the bridge between the actor and the character. And once you really get to know that character, I feel I got to know Lily. I got to know Mollie through Lily and how she was becoming her. You make a closet, like we were talking about, with all the possibilities that she would’ve had at her disposal. What skirts she would have what her taste would be in blankets. And then it kind of just came together. The character dresses themselves.

Lily Gladstone: One of my more fond memories is on our last scene, our last scenes of shooting, Jackie had built a shirt for me, a ribbon shirt entirely out of silk for me as my wrap gift with Mollie stitched in. And I still have it, but me, I walk in my trailer and I see this beautiful shirt hanging up and then this other beautiful shirt hanging up. I’m like, oh, she’s letting me choose. So I ended up choosing the shirt that Jackie built for me as my wrap gift, and I’m wearing it in one of the last scenes.

And I think wardrobe is very much where I found the last elements of Mollie. I mean, usually it is with any character that you play. And I remember the first fitting that I had with Julie, you were tying me into one of the broadcloth skirts with the butterfly plate. And I feel like there's a perception a lot people have of Native people, especially if you’re enthralled by us from a New Age-y perspective, that everything's loose and free. And it’s just like, no, we’re a very particular, protocoled people, very proper, especially traditionalists. And I mean, I don't know how you guys wear five layers of wool broadcloth in the middle of the summer, but you do it. Eventually you sweat enough, you’ve got a natural cooling system. 

But yeah, Julie tied me in after I was wrapped in the broadcloth skirt, which is a blanket folded a number of ways, and then you’re tied into it. I was kind of just slumped in, and then suddenly my spine was straight. The way you have to hold your shoulders to hold the blanket is almost in first position, like ballet first position. I think I said to you, oh, I get how this nation birthed America’s first prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief from Fairfax, Oklahoma.