For decades, film and television have influenced fashion, toys, Halloween costumes, and cosplay without costume designers profiting from their creations. “That’s changing, thanks to the massive success of social media,” notes costume designer Amy Parris for hit series Stranger Things. “Designers are attaining more recognition for their work and studios are realizing their followers bring more viewers to the show. Netflix is excited about my limited-edition capsule collection Stranger Colors of Benetton based on our series.”
 

Parris joined the cult, 1980s-set series on season 3. Her biggest challenge: to come up with 10 multiples for each costume owing to its ongoing theme of a parallel, dark-underworld universe with monsters, black blood, and various levels of dirty goo. An impossible feat with vintage clothing, she resorted to her in-house workroom and local manufacturers. Levi Strauss was first to step up and make multiples using 80s patterns. Then Guess invited Parris to their offices in downtown Los Angeles to go through their archives. Culling several pieces, she said, “If you can recreate these times 10, then I will put them on the show.” Quicksilver was interested in a collaboration and scheduled several meetings, but nothing came to fruition. After a while, Parris realized she was spending hours of her own time. She reached out to Linda Kearns at Matchbook, who encouraged her to speak up about what a costume designer contributes and be compensated for her extra work.
 

The series was in prep when the writers strike forced the show to go down. Netflix knew they wanted to have collaborations for season 5 and surmised it was a good way to compensate Parris for the extensive Zooms and meetings she had attended to help culminate a possible deal. They asked her which brand would be a good match for the show. Guess was very close to committing when Netflix’s head of collaborations mentioned that Benetton had seen their sweatshirt on “the cute girl” in season 4 and were excited for a collaboration as part of their brand relaunch strategy for the European market.
 

Even before a contract was signed, Benetton flew Parris to their headquarters in Treviso, Italy, to peruse their archives. “Being in the their archives was like looking through decades of creativity and originality. Benetton has been a leader in diversity and inclusion throughout the years, and it was so impressive to see their bold and bright colors in one place.” They offered the use of any of her chosen looks to be on camera, but the need for multiples made that undoable. They were able to recreate pieces, but not in time for filming. The three costumes Parris specifically designed for her principal actors were created in-house, and then Benetton made exact replicas for the collection. To recreate the knitwear, Parris used a company which has computerized knitting machines that can accomplish a fast turnaround and they recreated their own pieces to use on the show.

The revival vintage Benetton collection includes women’s wear, menswear, and kids’ wear based off of their original archives. The silhouettes are basically the same, but reinterpreted for a modern customer. “I was so excited when they brought me to Italy a second time to approve samples. They meticulously matched the colors of my designs to be screen accurate, and the pieces from their reimagined archive were in colors that I was able to help choose.” They ended up with a season of clothes that were a collaboration in color as well as style. Approvals over, Parris requested to be a fly on the wall during a Benetton/Netflix meeting. A graduate in fashion and merchandising, she found the experience invaluable. A wonderful surprise was a discussion of special-edition tags displaying Amy Parris’s signature for the Stranger Colors of Benetton capsule. “I felt so grateful for the experience. It resonates authenticity to have a costume designer’s fingerprint on the collection. Brands and studios are noticing shows have a following. Viewers get invested in their franchises. It’s a win-win.”