After nearly 10 years, it’s no surprise that everything about the “Stranger Things” final season is dramatic. The stakes are higher, the mood is tense (quarantine will do that to you), and the demons from the Upside Down are even deadlier. The show’s primary villain, Vecna, reemerges with a svelter, more sinister appearance, but he’s not the only one whose look shifted in season five. Many of our favorite Hawkins residents look a little grungier than we’re used to, and it’s not only because they’re living under lockdown and relying on Murray to smuggle in life’s little luxuries, according to lead hair designer Sarah Hindsgaul, opens in new tab.

“When I talked with Matt and Ross [Duffer, the show’s creators], they said they wanted to make this season grittier,” says Hindsgaul. “There's a lot of hair on ‘Stranger Things,’ but the most important thing for me this year was to try to make it not about the hair when you watch it.” To do this, Hindsgaul went back to her roots, tapping into the raw realism of the Danish Dogme 95 film movement that began in the mid-90s. “I started my career in this very European style of filmmaking, so for me it was about mixing the American stuff we are able to do with the wigs and designs and mix it with that Scandinavian sensibility of breaking it apart and making it look real.” Hindsgaul’s main goal, she tells The Set Set, was to make these characters believable and very human. “It’s about their process and about the acting and the story this year, and that's why you see them [many of them] starting with a much rougher look."

True Grit

When it comes to the hair, you notice the shift in tone almost immediately. After the opening credits, we see Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) scrambling to manage a full house that now includes the Byers family, too. Karen, whose hair has always been immaculately cut, colored, and styled, is now sporting the “saddest old perm” with grown-out roots, collapsed curls, and a yellow-y tone. “This is the first time we’ve ever seen her really undone,” says Hindsgaul. “We needed a strong contrast to her normal perfect look; I wanted her to look pulled apart, which goes really well with her mindset.” While not as bedraggled, Nancy Wheeler’s usually perfect perm was also meant to feel undone, with softer, more natural-looking curls and a cut that theoretically could be more easily maintained. “I wanted to make it look like she's not really spending that much time on herself anymore,” says Hindsgaul, who, along with the show’s wigmaker, custom-made wigs for actress Natalia Dyer. 

Steve’s luscious locks have also been transformed this season, not in terms of his cut (still the same) but the way Hindsgaul chose to style it, adding a grit that wasn’t there before. “Normally it's very fluffy and we use various mousses to blow-dry it up in this soft, wavy pattern. This year, we put waxes into Joe [Keery]’s wet hair and blow-dried them in so it looks piece-y and a lot more lived in; it’s not quite as beautiful, it has more of a cooler, rock star vibe.” Will (Noah Schnapp), on the other hand, has finally (nearly) moved on from his signature bowl cut for season five. “He’s growing up, noticing himself, and slowly caring what he looks like to the rest of the world,” explains Hindsgaul. The trick was to give him a cooler, edgier style without totally losing the essence and identity of his character. “The question was how do you still make him look like Will, so the silhouette kind of had to be the same, but then I cut everything really softly and layered it up.” Those changes created more texture, allowing the hair to move when he did. Noah then did a lot of the styling himself before walking on set. “He would get his hands in there; I think he knew exactly what he needed.” 

Stuck in Vecna’s memories and living in a cave, Max’s hair is probably the messiest of them all (and thankfully, mostly a wig, to protect Sadie Sink’s hair and maintain consistency). Eleven’s season four buzzcut has grown out and she's now rocking a regular-old low, loose bun tied back with your everyday elastic. The point was to make her hair invisible, says Hindsgaul. “I wanted to make sure that it was grittier and that this is about her saving the world, right? You don’t use your blow dryer when you’re doing that.” 

Grittier hair meant incorporating grittier products. Still relying heavily on mousse, Hindsgaul and her team also used waxes, texturizing sprays, and a lot of dry shampoo. “I used all different kinds: very fine dry shampoos when I needed to freshen up people’s hairlines in the summer, and then cheap ones when I wanted the hair to look flat. I don’t think it was the right way to use the products [at home], but it helped us achieve the effect we needed.” 

Strangely Perfect

The storyline called for some of the characters in season five, however, to look clean and polished  (in part one, at least). Erica (Priah Ferguson), who as of right now has stayed out of the fray, remains perfectly coiffed, her style inspired by something her aunt wore in the ’80s (Ferguson showed a photo of her to Hindsgaul as the two were coming up with the perfect look that didn’t feel too old or too young). 

Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher), now stuck in Vecna’s memories with Max, is one of them with her glossy, middle-parted pigtails. The style choice was based on continuity (Holly’s character has always worn pigtails in the show, even as a toddler), on logistics (it couldn't interfere with the cape she puts on in episode three and couldn’t fall apart as she’s running around Vecna's memory), and as a plot device. “I wanted people to look at Holly and think, ‘Are you real? Are we in a fairy tale?’ It brings up all these questions as to why her hair is looking so perfect,” says Hindsgaul. She also serves as a counterpoint to Max’s dusty, disheveled appearance when they finally meet. “I wanted that dynamic of really gritty and perfect next to each other, I think that is very strong.” Holly is the only main character Hindsgaul allowed to be styled with a modern day curling iron, the best tool to achieve those story-book ringlets with. 

Henry Creel (Jaime Campbell Bower) also stands out as a character with ultra-polished hair. One of the only characters Hindsgaul used hairspray on, his blonde waves aren’t supposed to move. “I didn’t want to put any life into him—I wanted the hair to look almost fake,” says Hindsgaul, who permed Campbell Bower’s stick-straight hair and added highlights to the end to help add softness and dimension on camera. “I wanted a confusion there—it’s kind of sweet and soft, but then it doesn't move.” Hindsgaul has employed this technique for some of the show’s other villains, including Dr. Brenner, whose hair was kept strict and stiff with hairspray, and Dr. Kay, whose icy gray wig was cut into a “sharp, no-nonsense ’80s shape with real structure and authority,” says Hindsgaul, adding that the volume of the wig created the illusion of a helmet, like “an armor of protection” the doctor wore in every scene. 

These details of mousse versus hairspray, glossy curls versus broken-down perm, gritty versus polished, may seem trivial while the internet is in a heated debate over Eager eggs that seem to point to the show’s ending." But it’s these intricate details in the hair—details Hindsgaul and her team spent hours debating and even more hours designing and executiving—that not only help shape this world we’ve fallen in love with over the past 10 years, but may even give us clues into its ultimate and dramatic end.