Fashion is a Two-Faced Bitch: Ugly Holiday Sweaters

It’s not as though they don’t know they are ugly. They hang on their own rack, segregated from all the other clothes in the store, under a sign that says, “Ugly Holiday Sweaters $9.99 and up”. If the clothing industry had an advocacy organization it would be all over this because, clearly, it is a discriminatory retail practice. One wonders why they are kept segregated as such, doesn’t one?

The second week of December is the one week of the year that ugly holiday sweaters reign supreme in department stores everywhere. In December, young, attractive people who previously passed by, perhaps pointing and giggling, on their way to trendier, more neutral-colored clothing options, suddenly swarm the ugly sweater aisle. For one brief, shining period of time they are like those two kids on Glee who suddenly became super popular and dated football players.

You might think their feelings would be hurt or that they would feel some resentment towards all the ugly sweater shoppers but nothing could be further from the truth. They revel in the second week of December. They can’t wait to be worn in public. They can’t wait to be the center of attention. They preen and vie for the title, “Ugliest Ugly Sweater”. You see, the thing about ugly sweaters is that they’ve compensated for their lack of classic good looks with loud, over-sized personalities. Holiday sweaters are, in fact, the lamp shade wearers of the fashion world.

And that’s why they must be segregated. If you’ve got one of these sweaters hanging in your closet, I strongly suggest you move it at once. Give it its own drawer, put it in a bag and store it in the attic or, better yet, throw it in the trunk of your car. Just get it the hell away from the rest of your clothes or pay the price. If left to mingle with your everyday wardrobe, your entire closet will implode within a week’s time and your clothes won’t know what hit them. It’s not that ugly holiday sweaters are intentionally aggressive. It’s that they act like your drunk, overbearing uncle on New Year’s Eve all the time.

It will start with a nudge and a wink when your ugly sweater tries to make a move on a cute pair of cropped jeans, which happen to be going out with the big, burly Irish fisherman’s sweater. The fisherman’s sweater will be apoplectic and take a swing at the ugly holiday sweater. Naturally, it will miss, instead knocking a satin kimono off its hanger. The kimono will, in turn, karate kick the Irish sweater, knocking it into several cotton oxfords who, up until that point, were having a grand old time exchanging snide comments with the ugly holiday sweater, who, by this point, is laughing uproariously, which annoys the elderly leather jacket hanging behind it, who shoves the ugly sweater, causing it to fall off its hanger on top of the kimono, who karate kicks it into the shoes, where it becomes impaled on a carelessly positioned Louboutin stiletto, and then all hell will break loose, because that hurt, dammit, and this isn’t funny anymore. And if you thought a drunk ugly sweater was disruptive, you should see an enraged, drunk ugly sweater in action. It tears itself off the stiletto, thrashing about among the shoes, swipes at a low-hanging wrap dress, which wraps itself around the fisherman sweater, hanging on for dear life, which totally unhinges the cute cropped jeans, who happen to be a tiny bit psychotic, wouldn’t you know, and not in a fun way, and that, my Dears, will be the demise of your closet.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Chicken out