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'Stranger Things' Costume Designer Amy Parris on Building ‘80s Battle Armor For A 'Full Circle' Finale

Fashion

Amy Parris on how she evolved the characters’ wardrobes into something more purposeful for the explosive series finale, which sees Hawkins’ heroes grow up and go to war.

With endings and beginnings colliding in the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things,” costume designer Amy Parris approached the series’ swan song as an exercise in duality. Season five of the Netflix series—including its two-plus-hour finale, which dropped on New Year’s Day—looks both backward and forward at once, honouring the show’s origins while preparing its characters for their final confrontation. Perhaps fittingly, the Upside Down became one of Parris’ most unlikely reference points. Much like the wormhole at the centre of this sci-fi saga, the costumes operate as a kind of tunnel through space and time, with colour palettes, textures, and silhouettes conveying how far these unlikely heroes have come. 

Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler in the series finale of "Stranger Things". Photo: Netflix

"It was a big undertaking, and it took about seven years to do all the seasons that I worked on, but I wouldn't trade it for the world,” Parris tells The Set Set. Joining the series from season three onwards, she inherited a richly defined visual language, one she was determined to honor for the show’s endgame. “I wanted to make sure I was paying homage to the blueprint of the show. I followed a lot of silhouettes from seasons one and two for our characters.”

That continuity is felt immediately in the show’s color coding in season five. Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) remains grounded in burgundies, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) returns to her pinks—choices that not only pay homage to the show’s early costume designers, but as Parris says, “feel like an echo of previous outfits”.

But knowing that season five would culminate in an explosive showdown with Vecna, Parris knew each character needed a battle armour upgrade. Case in point: Hawkins' resident sharpshooter, Nancy Wheeler. “Every time Nancy’s fighting, she’s in stripes,” Parris says. In season three, audiences saw her in a pink shirt with the stripes for the mall showdown, while in season four’s Creel house finale, she’s wearing a cream cowl neck sweater with stripes. For season five’s final battle, she dons a striped ombré sweater. “It's really me trying to make sure that the audience can watch this final season and feel like it's come full circle." 

Function was just as important as symbolism when it came to Nancy’s battle-ready wardrobe. "We took away any skirts,” Parris points out. Gone also are heeled footwear. Instead, Nancy is in Adidas sneakers and custom-made Guess jeans for most of season five. Knowing that it was an outfit that would end up getting a lot of screentime, Parris was fastidious that the jeans be “perfectly stonewashed to match the decade.” When the denim brand sent over their initial pair, they were just a little too light for Parris’s taste. “I was like, ‘I’m so sorry but can you do it again?’ And I’m so glad they did because it ended up being the the perfect wash when we camera-tested it.”

If Nancy’s look is tactical, Eleven’s is transformative. By season five, the psychic teen has fully entered her superhero era—albeit in a way that still feels true to her character. “She’s never really meant to be fashionable, because she wouldn’t know how to do that,” Parris admits. “If I ever did try to do that, the Duffer Brothers would pull it back and tell me that she looked too cool.”

However, creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer did have a directive for Eleven’s finale look. “They said, 'We think she should be in a wetsuit.' Like, very specifically, a wetsuit, which both Millie and I were a little concerned about with the weather and the heat.”  Practical concerns aside, the idea stuck. Parris collaborated with Body Glove to recreate an archival wetsuit design, grounding the look firmly in the ’80s. 

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in the "Stranger Things" finale. Photo: Netflix

When the suit proved too restrictive for Brown, who Parris says found the costumes "stifling" on the set in Atlanta, a solution came to her quickly. “What would Eleven do? She’d cut it so she could breathe a little more. So we snipped the wetsuit down, knowing we'd have to do that to all 20 copies, which is fine,” Parris laughs. The altered wetsuit was paired with in-house barrel-leg trousers and custom Nikes, resulting in a look that’s equal parts scrappy and powerful. “It’s a very cool ’80s version of a superhero,” Parris says. “And it just feels badass.”

Another character whose costume has generated as much intrigue is that of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink). Trapped for years inside Vecna’s mindscape, the fan favorite is forced to embrace a nomadic lifestyle and taking refuge in a mysterious cave that Henry/Vecna was terrified to enter. With Max's very existence intertwined with Vecna's, Parris was hit with a spark of inspiration and embedded subtle Easter eggs into her wardrobe.

Embedding hidden details in Max's 'mindscape' wardrobe, Parris sewed patches of fabric from Henry's shirts into her worn Levi's jeans. Fans may also have noted that Max's red boots are the exact same ones that a young Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) wears in one of Henry's high school memories. "I knew that Max needed to be in a patchwork of clothes that kind of just felt unlike anything that any of the characters would have recognised when they saw her," Parris says.

Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield in "Stranger Things." Photo: Netflix
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield and Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeeler in "Stranger Things." Photo: Netflix

Working closely with hair, makeup, props, and production design, Parris treated Max’s cave wardrobe as an accumulation of garments gathered, repaired, and reworked over time. "I knew I wanted it to reflect that she has gone through the time of all of Henry's memories," Parris recalls. "She's been out there for a long time. So finding that shirt fabric and cutting that up and putting it on, it just felt so right to tell the story.” For Max, jewelry also becomes a functional fix for torn sleeves ripped by the cave’s narrow entryways. “It was a mix of time of us having the time to prep that and the story itself. The Duffers write such good stories that I can then translate them into clothes.”

For Parris, finding vintage pieces for the show has become second nature, whether it's Max's Levi's or Mike's (Finn Wolfhard) retro knitwear. So, what's her secret? "The internet is our friend," Parris laughs. Popular online resale sites—along with her trusted network of vintage dealers built over the years—remain her go-tos.

"For Mike's sweater that he wears this season, I did find multiples of that from a vendor in Long Beach,” the costume designer recalls. "She had multiples of this sweater. And so I bought them all. Some of them are too big, some are too small, but we would cobble them together to make them fit for stunts. With patience and persistence, you can always  find specific stuff or gems." 


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