Costume Designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb on Dressing Scorching, Corporate-Controlled Future in “Alien: Earth”

Alien: Earth (streaming on FX) pictures our future here on Earth as a wildly advanced, increasingly grim corporate kleptocracy—a scorching hot planet that doesn’t get any more welcoming after it’s populated with flesh-eating “Xenomorphs” (thanks to a crashed research vessel owned by one of thoes corporate overlords, Weyland-Yutani) that is then pursued by a private army owned by tech genius Boy Kavalier’s company Prodigy. While face-bursting and brain-controlling eyeballs roam the rainforest, Prodigy corporation’s team of biohacked twentysomething “hybrids” fight to survive.

Starring Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, and Samuel Blenkin, the series, filmed in Thailand by showrunner Noah Hawley as an offshoot of the Alien franchise, enlisted costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb to dress the inhabitants of Earth circa 2120. Larlarb, who previously designed Slumdog Millionaire, Ang Lee film Gemini Man and James Bond’s No Time to Die, says she conjured the future the old-fashioned way. “Everything was drawn by hand by me onto a piece of paper before going through all the people needed to put it together. This is a recycled future where stuff is being re-purposed, so I wanted the uniforms to feel like they were well worn.”

Speaking from her London studio, Larlarb took a break from working on Shawn Levy’s new Star Wars: Starfighter movie to talk about Thailand heat, Timothy Olyphant’s turtleneck, “Boy Kavalier”‘s narcissistic style and the power of Chandler’s action hero outfits.

Putting a fresh twist on the Alien franchise makes for a big swing from showrunner Noah Hawley. What did he want from you in terms of costume design for this futuristic scenario?

First of all, we were tasked with making the aesthetics feel like the truth of where we were filming and why we were filming there.

Namely, a steaming hot Thailand representing a future where global warming has only gotten worse?

Yes. We had to pay homage to the fact that we’re in a hot and humid place, so that was one thing. Noah’s other brief was that corporations control everything, and there are no nation-states anymore. For me, it became about expressing those truths visually through the costumes and not just making generic sci-fi clothes that look futuristic.

Nearly everybody on this show is employed by the giant Prodigy corporation. How did that inform the clothes?  

Boy Kavalier [Samuel Blenkin] is the apex of that corporation, so everyone falls under his umbrella of ownership. The hybrids, the staff at [headquarters] Neverland, and the security forces all needed to reflect the arrogance of this megalomaniac at the top. For the security forces, we developed a uniform system that fit into this hot, humid environment.

How did you keep those uniforms cool in hot weather?

The Prodigy soldier costume has zippers. You can unzip the bottom half of the trousers so they can become shorts, unzip the long sleeves so they become short sleeves, and there’s ventilation in the back and under the armpits.

What about the fabric choices?

There’s a lot of cotton, linen, and breathable nylon Oxford cloth, which is very lightweight. Things that can get doused in water and dry very quickly –  that was my mantra.

The colors on Alien: Earth are generally pretty subdued. How did you arrive at this muted palette?

I thought long and hard about the color palette. I proposed that we could define systems within this world through colors to identify who’s who. For instance, within Prodigy’s Neverland facility, there are different color schemes for the technical staff, the biohacked hybrids, and the janitorial department. And then for the Prodigy security force, I went with gun-metal grey. Black had to be reserved for the alien Xenomorph.

It seems like each of the “Lost Boys” displays a certain degree of individuality.

The backstory there is that somewhere in the Neverland facility, there’s a closet full of [worn] clothing, and each synth is told you can choose three things that you will wear ad Infinium. It’s a very tight palette. But within that, for example, we put that brown on Nibs [played by Lily Newmark], which nobody else has.

Sydney Chandler’s Wendy, leader of the Lost Boys, brings an action hero vibe to the story. How did you arrive at her look?

The first time I met Sydney, I noticed she had amazing arms, so we wanted to show that. Wendy had been a sick, weak child preceding her [biohacked] life, so we wanted to dial up the volume on physical strength and fortitude. Sydney herself is so muscular, strong, and confident that I wanted Wendy’s clothing to showcase those qualities. By contrast, Slighty [played by Adarsh Gourav] is shy and scared and confused, so he always has long sleeves he can hide in.

The exception to the understated rule is Boy Kavalier, who runs around in cream-white leisure suits and bathrobes. What inspired his style?

We wanted to stay away from “tech bro in a hoodie,” but that trope reflects a truth about men who are so powerful they don’t have to wear a suit or tie. With him, it’s about ego: “If I like it, I’m going to wear it because I have all the money in the world and all these minions are making one-off outfits for me.” When Boy Kavalier’s called to this big board meeting with [rival corporation boss] Yutani, she’s dressed impeccably, like a grown-up. By contrast, Boy Kavalier waltzes in there and sort of attempts to be in a business suit but not really because the bare feet immediately go up on the table, there’s no tie, the shirt’s unbuttoned, like “I’m pretending to respect this thing you call a meeting.”

Where did that slouchy suit come from?

My own collection. I have a jacket I often wear myself. One day at a fitting, I happened to be wearing it, so I said to Samuel, “Try this on.” He tried it on, and we used its free-flowing shape as a jumping-off point.

Timothy Olyphant strikes quite a figure as Boy Kavalier’s right-hand synth-man Kirsh. What’s the deal with his ever-present turtleneck—even in the sweltering heat?

Kirsh doesn’t really sweat, so we didn’t have to worry about that. I wanted it to be about his head and his face and his thoughts and his machine mind and his hair [framing her face with her hands]. There needed to be a bridge from his super-sharp, never-taken-off uniforms, so I decided the best way to honor the power of his platinum hair was to have this black-out [turtleneck] around it.

What was it like setting up shop in Thailand?

Everything was bespoke, and nearly everything was made or sourced in Thailand. It was a massive endeavor, and I brought only one person with me from New York: my wardrobe supervisor, Pastel Clayton Latino, whom I had worked with on the Bond film. Srirattana “Bew” Wattanavitkul put the team together in Bangkok. We had a core group of about 30 people, which expanded to about 50 on days when we had crowd scenes.

You spent about eighteen months on location in Bangkok, which sounds pretty intense. Did you enjoy the process?

It’s a little like abstract expressionist painting: The product at the end is so out there, but at the beginning, you have to know the rules so you can make informed decisions. You had to bring everything in your toolbox, all your experience, all your creative reserves, because that’s what Noah demanded of the department heads. And, you know, creation is… exhausting! When you read the scripts, it’s like they’re pulling these things out of your body. You have to have stamina. There’s no plateau. Every episode has to outdo the previous one.

 Alien: Earth is streaming in its entirety on Hulu.

Featured image: FX’s Alien: Earth — “The Real Monsters” — Season 1, Episode 8 (Airs Tues, Sept 23) — Pictured (L-R): Erana James as Curly, Lily Newmark as Nibs, Sydney Chandler as Wendy, Adarsh Gourav as Slightly. CR: Patrick Brown/FX