The Christmas sweater is sometimes fun and sometimes really wrong.
Why are those Christmas sweaters at the Wrong Christmas Sweater Drink a reason to laugh, scream and roar, but at the same time they can also be the ultimate turn-off?
And where does the Christmas sweater actually come from?
Drunken Santa Clauses, singing Christmas trees, glitter and texts like If you jingle my bells I’ll give you a white Christmas: it’s time for the ugly Christmas sweater again. By ugly sweater parties to ugly sweater marathons: in December, the social gathering is dedicated en masse to this hideous piece of clothing. The uglier the better. Everyone puts one on, everyone participates and everyone has a great time.
At least, most of the time. Because the same connecting sweater can also turn out wrong. Like Mark Darcy in the movie Bridget Jones‘s Diary (2001). He is responsible for perhaps the most famous ugly Christmas sweater in film history. “Ding dong,” Bridget says with delight when she sees him from the back at a party. But then he turns around and the smiling face of a reindeer including a red nose appears on his chest. She turned off immediately.
Ding dong.
Subdued geometric knitting pattern
There are now roughly two categories of Christmas sweaters: the classic and the hysterical. Anyone who appears at Christmas dinner in a very expensive sweater from high fashion brands such as CELINE or Miu Miu or with a subdued geometric knitting pattern will probably make a different impression than someone in a Christmas sweater with I’m Sexy And I Snow It on it from SillySanta. Yet that classic, modest Christmas sweater can be seen as the precursor of the bad Christmas sweater.
The ‘classic’ Christmas sweater dates back to the nineteenth century and can be recognized by its geometric patterns. These were not only practical (repetition and overlapping layers insulate well) but also appealed to the imagination. The Selbu sweater, with its eight-pointed rose, originated in Norway in 1857 and became a national symbol; in Iceland, the ‘lopapeysa’ — a sweater with a circular pattern around the neck — was given that status after independence in 1944. Those who wore these sweaters kept themselves warm and belonged somewhere.
Norwegian style winter sweater.
Icelandic style winter sweater.
Photo Getty Images / iStockphoto
The sweaters were also popular outside the far north. After the Second World War they were picked up by the skiing elite. Hollywood stars and other wealthy people liked to appear stylish on the slopes. The handmade sweaters from the western far north exuded winter exoticism and gave their wearers, such as American actor Gary Cooper and Tyrone Power, an extra layer of exclusivity and class.
The motifs were wintery, but not yet explicitly Christmassy. The eight-pointed rose may symbolize resurrection in Christianity, but on a Norwegian sweater it mainly looks like an innocent snowflake. And the patterns of the lopapeysa can be reminiscent of mountains and volcanoes. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Christmas became increasingly commercialized, especially in the United States, the figures became more literal. Reindeer and pine trees were now combined together with the geometric patterns. This is how the sweater shifted from winter to Christmas, and from exclusive to cozy. The Christmas sweater – or jingle bell sweater as the sweater was then called – was born.
Hysterical and excessive
It was not until the 1980s that the Christmas sweater grew into an outspoken fashion phenomenon. In films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) and Scrooged (1988), and in series such as Cheers and ALFChristmas sweaters appeared en masse. The sweater was no longer subtle and classic, but hysterical and excessive, exactly like the fashion image of that decade. Actually, the eighties were one big screaming Christmas sweater.
Those heydays were short-lived. In the minimalist 1990s and early 2000s, what was once beautiful was suddenly seen as ugly and old-fashioned. Christmas sweaters changed roles. In the series, for example Friends and Home Improvement and so in Bridget Jones they were no longer worn by the entire cast, but ended up among the outsiders without style and taste.
The Christmas sweater was no longer fashion, but the symbol of the somewhat endearing loner (often a man) without taste. And with that: wrong. Until he became fun-bad. That turning point came in 2002, a year after Mark Darcy’s infamous reindeer sweater, when two Canadian students Ugly Christmas Sweater Party organized. The uglier the sweater, the better, was the concept. And that caught on. In the following years, the party grew into an annual event with thousands of visitors.
Social minefield
Since then, the ugly Christmas sweater has been widely embraced, albeit ironically. In 2011 Ugly Christmas Sweater Day created. That same year, Dolce & Gabbana released a collection of ‘ugly sweaters’ worth thousands of euros each. And since December 2015, the American presenter and comedian Jimmy Fallon has been participating in the American talk show The Tonight Show annually gives out extremely ugly Christmas sweaters to his audience.
The wrong Christmas sweater therefore embodies what the Christmas sweater has actually been since the nineteenth century: a dress code for the group. The sweater brings people together, as it should be at Christmas. Whether Icelanders in lopapeysas, a family around the Christmas tree, wealthy celebrities on the slopes or drunken students on a ugly sweater party.
It sounds like a nice Christmas message. But no matter how cozy the ugly Christmas sweater looks, it is also a social minefield. In his Christmas hit ‘Ugly Sweater’ Jimmy Fallon sings: “I was the only one in an ugly sweater. Red in the face, it doesn’t get better. Pretty clear I’m not a trend setter. I’m the only one in an ugly sweater.” The irony of the bad Christmas sweater only works as long as everyone participates. Those who miss the dress code, such as Mark Darcy or Jimmy Fallon, are laughed at. Where groups emerge, people inevitably fall out.
So the Christmas sweater is not wrong in itself, but because the group says so. The wrong Christmas sweater shows what people perhaps want most, especially at Christmas: to belong somewhere. The best Christmas thought would of course be that we don’t need a bad Christmas sweater for that. But it does make it a bit easier.
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