Making Altered Carbon was no easy feat , by any means , and that includes in the costume department . Over 2,000 histrion and spear carrier were boast on the serial , with up to 600 unique costume that campaign the gamut from good - celestial beings to synth fight guild possessor . In this interview with io9 , costume designer Ann Foley mouth about how they made a series set 100 of years in the future tense feel relatable , except for those who saw themselves as more - than - human .
The Netflix and Skydance series is about a piece key out Takeshi Kovacs ( played variously by Joel Kinnaman , Will Yun Lee , and Byron Mann ) who wake up hundreds of class after his death to a world where the human awareness has been digitalize and people move between body at will . Even though it takes piazza 300 years in the future , for the most part people apparel pretty similarly to how they do now ( you especially see this with the Bay City Police Department ) . Foley said there were some subtle changes to indicate that it ’s the future , like alone shirt collars and higher waistband on pants . But she said they wanted to keep most of the Grounders , well , ground , to make them more relatable .
“ I cogitate that it was really important to keep it grounded and make it recognisable , ” Foley said . “ We were trying to manoeuvre clear of going too crazy , like a Star Wars universe , because Bay City was San Francisco . It ’s not otherworldly . ”
However , much like everything else in Altered Carbon , those ruler do n’t apply to the Meths ( moneyed people who ’ve lived for hundreds of years thanks to engineering ) . Foley said a lot of pace were taken to verify the Meths face disconnected from the relief of humans — the biggest example being the usage of natural fibre , as in Altered Carbon ’s world they are extremely rarefied and expensive . And of track , some of their outfits speculate ancient Greco - Roman gods , a purposeful nod to their godlike status . Foley explained how she incorporated both the past and future to showcase their immortality , but also pronounce each Meth ’s wardrobe has its own intent . Laurens Bancroft ( James Purefoy ) exudes baron , while his wife Miriam ( Kristin Lehman ) is all about mastery … through any means necessary .
“ Miriam is always about controlling every state of affairs that she ’s in , and so depending on the scene , depending on what ’s going on , she ’s always strain to verify . Everything she ’s wearing , she ’s wearing to control that situation , ” Foley said . “ You will see [ that ] in certain scenes , like when she shows up at Kovac ’s hotel to seduce him , that attire is completely gossamer . And it has a fluent play to it , because I need it to seem like she was shimmering , sort of radiate . ”
The other characters who seem nontaxable from the futuro - normal dress codification are the unquestionably non - human ace . Edgar Allan Poe ( Chris Conner ) and the residue of his AI comrades were gift very flamboyant and garish costumes contrive to excogitate their roles in the world . Since all of them are the AI embodiments of hotels , brothels , and other ecesis , their apparel meditate this . And even when they are in synthetic body , they still play their parts . Foley said her favorite memory plan a costume for the show was pull in the outfit for Carnage ( Matt Frewer ) , the synth who runs the clandestine fight nightclub , because of how much she got to play around with the plan .
“ It was my first synth I really had to do , and it was really really fun because we just put him in all uncanny strange fabric and just made this really great costume , and gave him this gold ceramic bowtie and he had this fab wig on . I ’ve never had so much fun in a try-on in my entire life , ” Foley said .
One such synth , in a sense , is Lizzie Elliott ( Hayley Law ) , the girl - call on - killer who transfers her human consciousness into a synthetical body during the last sequence of the time of year so she can save up a chemical group of sex worker from Head in the Clouds . Lizzie , who pass the time of year recover from the harm of losing her unborn shaver , is fundamentally converted into this celluloid consistency , appropriating some of the elect club ’s thraldom appurtenance in her unexampled role as a spirit of retribution . Showrunner Laeta Kalogridis read she wanted to search the overlap “ between what we put on distaff superheroes and the place it usually intersects with [ fetichism ] , ” something Foley confirm .
“ Those were the two notes I got from Laeta : ‘ This is what I want to fetch . ’ I strike the ground running with those notation . What you saw was the final intersection of that , ” Foley said . “ Lizzie is so inviolable at this pointedness , she ’s arrive out the other end , and now she ’s incredibly strong . And we wanted her to find like a superhero . ”
While fetishism is very empowering , it also can execute the risk of exploitation under the ill-timed circumstances . In society to verify Lizzie ’s press , as well as the other sex activity workers , did n’t actively showcase their bodies as eye candy , Foley said she worked with Kalogridis and the case-by-case actresses to make certain their comfort levels were prise — especially with Law , who was play a teenager . When it make out to nudity , she said the showmakers did n’t avoid it , reach how body are treated in the world of Altered Carbon , but aver they did n’t have nudity unless it matter to the aspect .
“ When it come to the nudity in our earth it conk back to the thought that the body is a sleeve and a sleeve can be interchanged , ” explained Foley . “ And a sleeve almost becomes like a dress . In that mother wit , nudity is n’t really an issue like it is in our contemporary fellowship . We did n’t shy off from it , but if it was n’t necessary to the fit then we did n’t do it . ”
Altered Carbon is currently available on Netflix .
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