Months after Stranger Things ended, the show is still finding new things to do. It’s come to Broadway and gotten an animated spinoff, and its newest accomplishment sees it coming to the Smithsonian.
Recently, the first real outfit worn by Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven—that’d be her pink dress, flannel jacket, and converse—was recently donated to the museum. (According to the museum website, this dress is specifically from the season two episode “Trick or Treat, Freak.”) When the show’s first season got popular in 2016, that became a an equally popular Halloween costume, hence its inclusion in the National Museum of American History.
‘Stranger Things’ EPs the Duffer Brothers and Shawn Levy sign the deed of gift for Eleven’s dress’s donation to the Smithsonian at a Netflix FYC event: “This is amazing!” pic.twitter.com/Tle8ay2Vbj
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) May 22, 2026
The dress was donated to the Smithsonian at a Netflix For Your Consideration event, which was attended by several Stranger stars, executive producer Shawn Levy, and creators Matt and Ross Duffer. During the event, the museum’s entertainment curator Ryan Lintelman called the dress a “brilliant illustration of Eleven’s journey to discover herself and claim her power. Until this point in the series, she’d had only worn hospital gowns and hand-me-downs, suggesting her lack of autonomy and individuality; when she first puts on the dress and a blonde wig, Eleven remarks that she looks pretty, a major step on her journey to self-awareness and empowerment.”
With this, Stranger Things becomes the first Netflix series to make it into the Smithsonian. Now that it’s part of the museum’s entertainment collection, it’s available for research—and to diehard fans of the show, they may get to see it with their own eyes whenever it’s put up on display.
[via Deadline]
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