- This is Eleven.
[gentle synth music]
This is Steve.
[glass shattering]
And this is Nancy.
You know them from Stranger Things.
You know this look.
[camera snapping]
And this one.
[camera snapping]
And how could you forget this one?
But are they accurate?
We got this fashion historian.
- Hi I'm Bethany Gingrich
and I'm a fashion and dress historian.
[camera snapping]
- To fact check the fashion
in 'Stranger Things'.
[pen scratching]
First, let's establish a setting.
- [Bethany] 'Stranger Things' takes place
in the fictional town of Hawkins,
Indiana during the 1980's.
Season one begins in the Fall of 1983.
Season two begins in the Fall of 1984.
And season three in the Summer of 1985.
Even without the title cards,
we know it's the 1980's
because the Duffer Brothers
did a meticulous job of filling the show
with references to the period.
- Why is no one else wearing costumes?
- Because the show takes place
over the course of a few years,
we can see the full evolution
from late 1970's holdovers
to nostalgic ideas of 1980's fashion.
One thing to remember is that
fashion moved much slower
outside of the big cities.
People simply didn't have
access to the same information
about fashion that we do today.
- [Narrator] Okay, let's
get into the looks.
[pen scratching]
First up, Eleven's Starcourt Mall look.
[upbeat 80's rock music]
- Eleven's look,
after she gets her montage
makeover at the Starcourt Mall
shows a new side to her character.
She finally gets to choose her own style,
rather than wearing Nancy's
1970's hand me downs,
cast offs from Hopper or her
edgy phase from season two.
Season three starts in the Summer of 1985.
And the fashions are starting to become
much more quintessentially 1980's.
With bolder patterns and
brighter colors than before.
- [Narrator] So, is
Eleven's look accurate?
- For 1985, this look is very accurate.
- [Narrator] Time to get into the layers.
[pen scratching]
Layer one, the camisole.
- We can only guess, but El would have
most likely been wearing a
cotton camisole and underwear.
These would have been common
for pre-teens and children
during the 1980's.
The camisole evolved from a
late 19th century undergarment
that would have been worn over a corset.
It was typically lacy and decorative
and made out of cotton or linen.
Although the corset gradually disappeared,
the camisole continued in styles
of undergarments from
the 1920's and beyond.
The linear, columnar silhouette
of the 1920's really allowed the camisole
to become an essential
undergarment in fashion.
By the 1980's, it simplified
into the undergarment
that we know of today.
So during the 1980's, the
camisole would have been worn
by young girls and pre-teens
before they reached training bra status.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] The next
layer would be the shirt.
- El is wearing a black button up shirt
with a neon splatter print.
I think the print reads a little
more late 80's, early 90's.
If this shirt was from 1985,
I think the color combination
would have been a lot more
garish, a lot more loud.
The pattern would have been
not even as subtle as this.
The yellow and black shirt that she wears,
later in the season, actually
seems more accurate to me.
MTV had come on the scene
in 1981 and the logos, art,
and music that they promoted
really changed youth fashion.
Now we're seeing brighter, bolder colors
and an emphasis on non
conformity in styles.
The black and multicolored neon print
could have been a choice to cater
to more contemporary audiences' taste.
But the baggy fit is on point.
The loose fit of the
shirt is really emblematic
of how everything got
bigger in the 1980's.
[pen scratching]
[upbeat 80's rock music]
- [Narrator] Next up, the jeans.
- El is wearing Jordache Jeans
with matching blue suspenders.
They're definitely accurate.
Jordache Jeans had been all
the rage since the early 1980's
and suspenders were nearly
ubiquitous for teens.
The fit of these jeans definitely
matches styles of 1985.
The looser cut in the
hip and the tapered leg
were a stark contrast to 1970's styles
that were extremely tight.
[pen scratching]
And had that full bellbottom flare.
During the 1980's, teens
wore suspenders in a variety
of different ways.
[pen scratching]
Suspenders were originally
functional straps
to keep your pants of your garters up.
They were considered underwear
because they were rarely
or should have been rarely seen.
By the 1980's, they had become
a popular outerwear look.
Rebellious youth subculture
was like the punks
of the 1970's and the New
Romantics of the 1980's,
wore suspenders over their clothes,
really giving them that fashionable edge.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] Then, the sneakers.
- El is wearing Reebok
freestyle high top sneaker
and we can tell this because
of the recognizable soft line
on the side as well as
the style of the high top.
First launched in 1982, the
light and flexible freestyle
was created to fill the market need
for an aerobic shoe for women.
The freestyle was a part
of the growing active
wear trend of the 1980's.
Sigorney Weaver wore a pair
of freestyles in "Aliens".
Jane Fonda wore them in
her VHS workout videos
and Cybill Shepherd even wore them
on the red carpet in 1985.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] And then,
the next layer, the hair.
- El's hair has some
volume and it's pulled back
with a scrunchy.
[camera snap]
I would say this hair
is accurate for 1985,
but we need to have a quick chat
about this scrunchy.
[pen scratching]
Variety in hair
accessories really took off
in the 1960s and '70s
with new kinds of plastics
and fabric hair ties
coming onto the market.
So it's likely that El could
have been wearing a scrunchy
like fabric hair tie, but
the scrunchy, as we know it,
actually didn't become popular until 1987.
[camera snaps]
The inventor filed a patent
in 1986 for a fabric
wrapped elastic hair tie.
She named her invention the snunci
and she sold it to a man
who created a company
callled Scunci International
in order to sell it.
By 1987, the scunci had
completely taken over.
It came in every imaginable
material and color.
Sometime in the '90s, the
name scunci transitioned
into the much easier to pronounce scrunchy
and the rest is history.
So El's hairstyle might be
a bit of an exaggeration.
She could have gone with
a bold fashion choice
and worn an existing fabric hair wrap,
but she could not have known
about the new scunci trend.
Her styling and hair volume
are definitely accurate.
- [Narrator] So here's what
Eleven would have looked like,
compared to her styling
in Stranger Things.
Seems pretty accurate.
[pen scratching]
Up next, Steve.
- [Bethany] Steve's style
is really consistent
throughout the show.
He dresses like a popular,
attractive teenager of the 1980s.
- Hello, ladies.
- [Narrator] Let's go right ahead.
[pen scratching]
First up, the underwear.
- [Bethany] So it's the 1930s.
Guys would have had two
options for underwear.
Boxers or briefs.
Steve could have been wearing either.
During the 1980s,
designers like Calvin Klein
and Armani were really making underwear
for men fashionable and tight.
In 1984, I think Steve probably
would have stayed simple.
He's a teenager in
Indiana, not Richard Gere
in American Gigolo, after all.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] Time to move on
to he next layer, the T-shirt.
- Steve is wearing a
plain, navy blue T-shirt.
The cotton knit T-shirt originated
as a men's undergarment.
During the 1940s and
'50s, wearing the T-shirt
on its own became a sign of rebellion,
especially through bad boy celebrities
like James Dean and Marlon Brando.
As fashion roles relaxed
into the late 1960s,
the T-shirt became a casual,
unisex, everyday look.
During the '80s, Steve's plain
tee would have been accurate.
I also wanna make a comparison
to Dustin's graphic printed tees,
which were very popular in the 1980s.
Graphic tees became
popular after World War II,
when they were used in the military.
During the 1960s and '70s, advancements
in screen printing technology allowed
for anything that you wanted
to be printed on a T-shirt.
By the 1980s, pop culture
and branding had really begun
to explode and the graphic
tee acted as an advertisement.
[pen scratching]
- And onto the next the jeans.
[mellow guitar music]
- Steve wears light wash, mid
rise Levi's with a brown belt.
You can tell that they are Levi's
by the arcuate arches that
are on the back pocket,
which Levi's actually trademarked.
Levi's is actually the oldest denim brand.
Since it transitioned from
work wear into fashion
around the 1950s, it's never
really gone out of style.
By the 1980s, jeans were the
everyday uniform for everyone.
Teens and beyond.
Jeans in the 1980s had a looser fit
and were more straight in
the legs than the 1970s.
No more bulge and bellbottoms.
[pen scratching]
- In the next layer, sneakers.
- Steve has on a pair of Nike Cortez,
a shoe that debuted in the 1970s.
These shoes would have been popular
for teens and adults
in 1984 through today.
The Cortez was developed as a running shoe
and like the Reebok
freestyle that we talked
about earlier, they
were a part of the rise
of athletic wear into everyday fashion.
These shoes are totally accurate.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] Let's talk about the jacket.
- Steve wears an immediately recognizable
Members Only bomber jacket.
We can see that it is Members only because
of the little black label on the side.
It's subtle, but it's clear.
Members Only is a brand
that became popular
in the US in the 1980s.
This was a popular slim cut jacket,
made out of cotton or leather.
The bomber style jacket
comes from Air Force pilots.
You can see this is the epaulets
and the knit hem.
[pen scratching]
The brand name was so called
because of the exclusivity
of country clubs, but
ironically, it was made
in all sizes and was sold
at a cheaper price point.
[exciting music]
- But it's only authentic
if it says Members Only right here.
- Steve's jacket is
definitely accurate for 1984.
[pen scratches]
- [Narrator] What's next?
- [Bethany] So I could see
Steve's sunglass peaking
out of his jacket pocket.
[pen scratches]
I really wanna talk about these.
Steve wears Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.
- Oh, yeah.
- The Ray-Ban company has
been around since the 1930s.
Their first design was
created by an Air Force pilot
to eliminate glare while flying.
And that was the Aviator.
The Wayfarer, the bold, iconic frame
that Steve wears was invented in 1956.
They were designed with the styles
of mid century modern cars
and furniture in mind.
Because they were so strongly
associated with that era,
they went out of fashion in the 1970s.
By the 1980s, Ray-Bans used
strategic product placement
in over 60 film and TV shows
to bring Wayfarers back.
[tape whirs]
Steve even wears his
pair when he's dressed
as Tom Cruise's character in
"Risky Business" for Halloween.
And the film had just come out in 1983.
Since then, Wayfarers have been
most strongly associated with the 1980s.
[pen scratches]
- [Narrator] And we have
to talk about the hair.
- Steve's hair, in season two,
has become even more extreme
than it was is season one.
It's definitely become iconic.
[camera snaps]
His hair is longer, it's more exaggerated,
and it's beginning to grow into a mullet.
It feels like Michael J Fox
going from high schooler
in Teen Wolf to rock star in Light of Day.
The mullet had been popular with musicians
and celebrities since the 1970s.
And Steve adopting it
in 1984 fits right in.
The 1980s really saw an
increase in marketing
of hair products towards
men, including gels,
mousses, hairsprays, and hairdryers.
Billy uses a gel that's
marketed towards men,
but Steve's secret go-to is
women's styling products.
- It's Faberge Organics.
- [Bethany] I love this level of detail.
Faberge Organics shampoo
and Farrah Fawcett hairspray
were big sellers in the 1980s.
- Do four puffs of the
Farrah Fawcett spray.
- [Narrator] So here is Steve's look,
compared to the original
from Stranger Things.
Looks accurate.
[pen scratching]
Now, let's move on to Nancy.
[mellow, synth music]
- [Bethany] Let's talk about
Nancy's season one look,
where she's wearing this red jacket
and she's getting ready
to fight the Demogorgon.
Nancy's wardrobe has a lot of leftover
styling elements from the 1970s.
This makes sense because Nancy's supposed
to be a real teenager.
- [Narrator] So is Nancy's style accurate?
- Right off the bat, it really feels
like Nancy's look is accurate.
- [Narrator] Let's draw
Nancy's look, layer by layer.
[pen scratching]
First up, the undergarments.
- In an earlier episode,
we see that Nancy is wearing
a white, lace cupped bra.
By this time, the formula
for women's underwear is,
essentially, the same as today.
It's two pieces, a bra and underwear.
The bra has been around
since the early 20th century.
Advancements in synthetic
and stretch fabrics
after World War II ensured
more comfort in underwear.
Trends in athletic wear paved the way
for the bra to fit more closely
to the women's body
than it had previously.
The 1980s bra had more stretch
and it fit more naturally
that 1950s and '60s styles,
which sought to change the shape
of the body, rather than conform to it.
From what we can see, it
looks pretty accurate.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] The next layer, the shirt.
- You can see Nancy's collar peeking out
from under her sweater, here.
[pen scratching]
It looks like a muted brown plaid,
which would have been consistent
with color palettes of the 1970s.
Layered button down shirts under sweaters
or sweater vests feels very
on point for the 1980s.
[pen scratches]
- [Narrator] Next up, the jeans.
- Just like El and Steve,
Nancy's wearing jeans.
It's no surprise because
denim had become universal,
casual, everyday wear by this time.
Nancy's boot cut high waist jeans
are totally the right
fit and color for 1983.
Although we can't say for sure,
these were very likely designer denim,
a craze that was huge in the 1980s.
Big names like Gloria
Vanderbilt, Jordache,
and Calvin Klein created mass sex appeal
through racy advertisements.
You may have heard of the
infamous Brooke Shields' ad.
- You wanna know what comes
between me and my Calvins?
Nothing.
- [TV Announcer] Calvin Klein jeans.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] And that brings us
to the fourth layer, the sweater.
- Nancy wears a turquoise
sweater over her button up shirt.
The color of the sweater
feels perfect for 1983.
This turquoise color feels like
it would have fit perfectly
in both the '70s and '80s.
This sweater could have
been made out of natural
or any number of synthetic fibers.
[pen scratches]
- [Narrator] And then,
over it all, the jacket.
- Nancy's burgundy jacket
has a pointed collar
and it's lined in fleece.
The jacket itself reads very 1970s.
Both the color and the
shape of the collar.
It could be a hand me
down or an older piece
from Nancy's wardrobe.
The collar is certainly
no longer bright white.
[gun pops]
This jacket was very well loved.
When we look at this lining, there's three
different ways to interpret it.
It could be shearling, fleece, or sherpa.
Shearling is wool that's still attached
to the hyde of the animal.
Fleece is the wool that's
been removed from the animal.
Sherpa is a faux fleece,
made of polyester or acrylic.
You can tell this is fleece
lined and not shearling
because of the way the
jacket is constructed.
A real shearling jacket
would be very thick.
This jacket does not look thick
enough to be real shearling.
The fleece lined jacket
would have been popular
from the '70s into the
'80s so this look fits.
This could possibly be
faux fleece or sherpa.
Versions of faux furs had
been around since the 1930s
and in some rare case, even earlier.
Initially, these were a cheaper
alternative to natural furs.
The animal rights movement
didn't go mainstream
until the late 1980s.
If this is a sherpa fleece,
then Nancy would have
had to buy it after 1979.
That was when the products
first became available.
- Have you met my parents?
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] And of course, the shoes.
- Nancy wears brown
leather hiking boots here.
Very practical.
These have a rounded toe and a rubber soul
and she wears them fully laced up.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] In the
next layer, the gloves.
- [Bethany] Nancy is wearing
white, knit, fingerless gloves.
She's definitely wearing these more
for warmth than for fashion,
but they still work.
The 1980s had some great
fingerless glove moments.
[pen scratching]
- [Narrator] The next
layer is her jewelry.
- Nancy wears simple,
circle studs that appear
to be gold and a watch with a black band.
This type of dainty jewelry
is often associated with youth
and in the 1980s, there is
an especially big difference
because of the more ornate
styles for adult women.
Nancy is 17, but these choices
show us her connection to her childhood.
[pen scratches]
- [Narrator] And finally, the hair.
- Nancy wears her hair pulled back
into a functional, high ponytail.
I have to point out again here
that what Nancy is
wearing is not a scrunchy,
but it may be a fabric wrapped hair tie.
I can see Nancy's soft
waves in her ponytail.
When Nancy's wearing her hair down
and pinned back with a barret or a comb,
we can definitely see the 1970s influence.
Keep in mind we haven't
reached peak perm volume
of the 1980s just yet.
- [Narrator] So here's what
Nancy would have looked like,
compare to the original
look from Stranger things.
Conclusion.
- The Duffer brothers
and the costume designers
definitely did their research
to create realism in Hawkins.
These looks aren't focused on
what was brand new every year,
but instead focused on what
real people were wearing.
The '80s were the not so distant past
and the show really feeds into
our nostalgia for that era.
