Talking to Charlese Antoinette Jones, who recreated the world of the Black Panthers in 1969 Chicago.

The black leather jacket and beret are the most enduring iconography of the Black Panther Party. But when costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones was doing background research for Judas and the Black Messiah—a film about the final months of Fred Hampton’s (Daniel Kaluuya) life before he’s betrayed by undercover informant William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) and murdered by the FBI—she realized she needed to take a different approach.

“I started noticing that there weren’t a lot of people wearing leather,” Jones told me. “I found a photo set from a Japanese photographer that’s beautiful—Illinois chapter Panthers in camo jackets in the snow, with their fists raised. I’m like, ‘This is so fascinating. If I hadn’t done research I would’ve probably put everyone in leather because that’s just what we think of when we think of Panthers.’”

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