Ah, the Christmas sweater, with its jingle bells, gaudy glitter and images of Santa, snowmen, elves and reindeer herds.
Embraced in the 1980s by moms and grandmas, ridiculed in the 1990s by fashionistas, celebrated the last several years at ugly sweater theme parties galore, it’s entering new territory.
This season, it’s serving as inspiration to high-end fashion designers and retailers.
For women, Burberry featured a camel tan made-in-Italy cashmere sweater with a toy soldier on its front. (Price: $1,295.)
Phillip Lim’s offering: A sweater adorned with giant snowflakes for $475.
Similarly festive sweaters are showing up at Neiman Marcus (in the form of a cream color cashmere sweater with a gray penguin on the front), Nordstrom (a cropped zip up reindeer sweater) and Bergdorf Goodman has been showcasing a gray snowflake cardigan.
The selection for men is less extensive, but high-end holiday sweaters are available for them, too.
“It’s a new phenomenon,” said Jon Jordan, an image consultant and the style editor for WDIV-TV (Channel 4). “Somehow, designers embraced the notion” of the holiday sweater “but improved the results. Maybe it was a case of them instead fighting it, they just decided to elevate it.”
Most fashion trends tend to trickle down — designer-influenced dresses, handbags, shoes, jewelry and more show up fast at fashion retailers such as H&M, Forever 21 and Target almost as soon as they’re off the runway. But Christmas sweaters worked their way from the bottom up.
Christmas sweaters may be the subject of several books and Pinterest boards. They may be sized to fit wine bottles, dogs as well as people. They may have been saluted by thousands Friday on National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. But there’s no denying that they come from more humble beginnings.
“The trend started with grandma and mom,” said Christos Garkinos, a former metro Detroiter who is co-owner of Decades, a Los Angeles boutique that specializes in high-end consignment and vintage couture and was last year the subject of a Bravo network reality show. “Fashion takes from everything.”
More bedazzled the better
The first thing to know about holiday sweaters, according to their legions of fans, is that they make people happy.
“You really can’t be in a bad mood when you have on an ugly sweater because everybody looks at you or they give you the thumbs up or they smile,” said 43-year-old Pamela Lumetta of Shelby Township.
“They can be so crazy and creative,” said Lumetta, who won the ugly sweater portion of November’s Hideous Holiday Sweater Run in Milford. “I just bought an inexpensive sweater” from the Salvation Army, “knowing that I was going to glue a lot of things on it.
“I started with the tree. I did the bow and I started putting little pom poms around it. I had icicles hanging from my arms. There were ornaments hanging off the bottom.”
Until recently, Jennifer Matthews didn’t quite understand the joy associated with wearing an ugly holiday sweater. “I will wear little Christmas earrings. I’ve got little wreaths on my ears right now. Christmas sweaters,” she said, “always seemed a little over the top to me.”
But when organizers of a sing-a-long she attended earlier this holiday season suggested participants wear Christmas sweaters, she headed to a thrift store and bought a green V-neck sweater dotted with images of Santa golfing.
“It was kind of fun to have a reason to sort of celebrate everything that’s kitschy about Christmas,” Matthews said.
“It’s all about the past and what you remember as a kid, but at the same time it’s the celebration of the time of year. My mom liked to wear the Christmas sweaters. I had family friends that were really into that whole sweatshirt appliqué. So there was a lot of that stuff. I remember from Thanksgiving on, it just seemed like it was glitter central in school because we had to be sparkly and stuff. To me, that’s what made me laugh.”
Designers elevate the look
Because they come from so many different sources — mom’s closet, thrift stores, discount stores, and, it turns out, Neiman Marcus — it’s difficult to know exactly how many Christmas sweaters, ugly or otherwise, are sold every year. But it’s clear their popularity grows and grows and grows.
“We knew the potential,” said Fred Hajjar who 2½ years ago started a Walled Lake-based company that supplies kitschy Christmas sweaters to retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Amazon and eBay. It also sells them on its own e-commerce site: www.uglychristmassweater.com.
Among the offerings: a sweatshirt bearing a giant Santa face, another featuring an image of a female elf on a stripper pole, a black sweater decorated with a felt cutout Santa, snowflakes and a Christmas tree.
“We’re one of the only sites that have light-up sweaters,” said Hajjar. “We have three different styles. How else can you attract more attention than with a sweater that blinks? We’re proud of that!”
Last year, his company sold 4,000 ugly Christmas sweaters, so far this year it has sold 8,500, he said.
Ann Marie Blackman, who lives in Killington, Vt., said she gets 40,000 people a day on her website, www.myuglychristmassweater.com, which features 1980s sweaters she upcycles into especially eye-catching designs.
“Obviously, 40,000 people aren’t buying sweaters, but there’s such an interest in looking at them,” she said, adding that last year her sales topped 5,000 sweaters.
And now the world of high-end and designer fashion is joining the party.
Designer sweaters are much more subdued, some might say more tasteful,than the over-the-top traditional sweaters so many people celebrate.
The new sweaters, said Jordan, allow people to be festive without “resigning themselves to looking horrendous.”
Said Gregg Andrews, fashion creative director for Nordstrom stores: “They normally have just one large graphic design on them as opposed to ... villages and Santas and reindeer and bells. ... They’re not designed for, ‘Oh, I’m going to wear this on Christmas eve or wear it to a holiday party at the office.’ They’re really designed to be worn every day.
“They’re not intended to be a flashback to the gaudy sweaters of decades gone by,” said Andrews. “Do they still say holiday? Yes they do.”
Just like Christmas lights — some people prefer conservative white lights while others prefer multi-colored lights that blink and flash — but in the end, both varieties light up the season.
And they make people happy.
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