BIG DEMAND FOR UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS.
VANCOUVER — For years, sweaters bristling with bells, lights, appliqued Santa Clauses, snowmen and reindeer were mocked as the exclusive province of the tasteless at Christmas.
But the tide is turning and the ugly Christmas sweater has become the season’s newest tradition and continues to grow.
“Right after Halloween we bring in the ugly Christmas sweaters,” said Tracy Lynn, the manager of Used House of Vintage, where street-level signs tell Vancouver shoppers they can find “5,000 ugly Christmas sweaters upstairs.”
“It goes up every year. It’s definitely up this year,” Lynn said of the amount of merchandise her store was selling. “We’re selling more, sooner, earlier in the season than we were last year.”
Both Lynn and Stephen Peever, who mans a sidewalk stall, Ugly Christmas Sweaters, say demand had increased markedly in the past three or four years. They attributed that growth to more people having office and house parties featuring ugly Christmas sweaters.
“Typical day, I probably sell 15 to 20, on a good day, maybe 30,” said Peever. “People love them, and I can thank grandmothers around the world for that. It’s really fun when you see somebody’s face just light up at the atrociousness of a sweater.”
His own stock featured crowds of apparently cloned Clauses, some rendered in rayon, others with fluffy beards, and another with a family of three snow people, each of whom had lost a coal-lump eye, leaving them unsettling snow-cyclopses.
But even as their popularity grows, some people aren’t in on the joke.
“I’ve had some grandmother types come down and say, ‘Oh, that’s not ugly. That’s just a nice sweater,’” Peever said. “Thank you for the trend. You’re the one who started it.”