Origins & Rise of The Ugly Christmas Sweater Tradition

Today, most of us consider ugly Christmas sweaters funny, but it wasn’t always this way.

In the 1980s, people viewed them as tacky and bizarre (this we can’t argue with), with Bill Cosby alone daring to wear them.

A single movie managed to change the general public perception of ugly holiday sweaters forever, forcing people to waive their pomposity and participate in Christmas cheer. This movie was called Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Throughout the 21st century, the popularity of ugly Christmas sweaters was rapidly increasing.

Comical knits were spotted on celebrities, runways, TV shows, and even British Royal Family members.

The 1950s’ Ads

In the 1950s’, Christmas saw mass commercialization across the entire globe. Magazines, late-night shows, and street banners were promoting Christmas decorations, activities, and a new, jolly and plump image of Santa Claus.

Along with Coca-Cola and Christmas lights, popular Christmas ads presented Christmas sweaters, at that time known as “Jingle Bell Sweaters.” They weren’t particularly ugly – on the opposite, many were artistic and joyful.

The 1950s’ Christmas sweaters typically featured some sort of geometrical pattern and reindeer, skiing figures, Christmas trees, snowflakes, or other holiday symbols.

They were quite elegant, made in traditional Christmas colors – blue, red, green, and white.

Perhaps, the ugliest Christmas sweaters at that time were ones featuring Coca-Cola bottle silhouettes and those with large lettering, declaring “Frosty the Snowman.”

These sweaters were made with a promotional intent. Still, over time, the designs got much worse.

Christmas sweaters didn’t find large popularity in the 1950s. However, some TV personalities of the era, including Val Doonican and Andy Williams, really embraced the tradition of wearing a holiday-themed sweater at Christmas time.

The 1980s’ Ugly Sweater Popularization

The 1980s’ were the true rise of the ugly Christmas sweater. The man accountable for the popularization of this trend was Bill Cosby from The Cosby Show.

Bill Cosby’s Christmas sweaters would look odd even today. Sometimes, they featured traditional Christmas symbols and patterns, but in weird color combinations, bizarre drawing styles, or strange placement.

Most of Cosby’s sweaters, however, had nothing to do with Christmas.

Many featured chaotic, psychedelic abstract patterns, others – Olympic runners, hair combs, and other nonsensical images. The one with hair combs wasn’t that bad, if only it made any sense.

Nearly all of the sweaters seen on the show were created by Dutch designer Koos van der Akker. These sweaters were one-of-a-kind, made specifically by Bill Cosby’s order.

Koos van der Akken dressed numerous celebrities, including Elton John and Cher, but ended up being famous as the “Cosby ugly sweater” designer.

Thankfully, he’s totally cool with such a reputation and his creations being used as inspiration for modern ugly Christmas sweaters.

Although The Cosby Show and a few other TV appearances, such as Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold sweater in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” had a huge role in promoting the ugly Christmas sweater trend, the resurgence didn’t last long.

In the 1990s, the ugly Christmas sweater popularity started to fade. Such sweaters weren’t seen as funny as they are today but more as a tacky, eyebrow-raising sartorial mishap.

The 2000s’ Ugly Sweaters on the Surge

The ugly Christmas sweater experienced a sort of a renaissance at the beginning of the millennium when Bridget Jones’s Diary came out.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve likely already understood which sweater caused the new popularity surge.

At Christmas, Colin Firth’s character Mark Darcy comes to greet Bridget Jones wearing a dark green sweater with a gigantic, red-nosed reindeer.

This may not sound that bad, but the knitting was unattractive, to say the least.

Bridget Jones was horrified, but the audience laughed and decided to embrace the trend. Ugly sweater Christmas parties started kicking off all around the US and Europe.

Perhaps, the reason for such a rapid public perception of ugly sweaters from tacky to fun happened because the movie helped to see the design in a humorous way.

Darcy’s sweater may look like it was the first thing that fell out of his wardrobe while he was getting ready in a hurry. But the truth is, the garment went through numerous design changes until movie producers agreed it was just right.

In one of her interviews, Sharon Maguire, the Bridget Jones’s Diary director, explains such a design choice.

As Darcy is first shown as a pretentious English prig, she was looking for a sweater ridiculous enough to totally pierce that pomposity.

Darcy’s famous sweater made a reappearance in 2016 Bridget Jones’ Baby. Without going deep into the plot, the sweater plays an important allegorical role in Darcy and Bridget’s relationship. But this isn’t today’s topic.

By 2007, Google searches for ugly Christmas sweaters were soaring. The trend hasn’t declined since that time – the searches continue to spike every year with the start of the holidays season.

Royal Family Ugly Christmas Sweaters

British Royal Family members are an example of timeless, sophisticated style. They don’t wear anything ugly, let alone ridiculous. Well, sort of.

The real British Royal Family members, indeed, prefer to dress classy for Christmas. But their wax figures at the famous Madame Tussauds Museum in London, created in 2012, are better at following modern trends.

The figures were a part of a charity campaign, Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day.

The participants had to make a donation to Save the Children, then wear an ugly sweater throughout the day to raise awareness of the campaign.

Queen Elisabeth’s sweater was green, featuring her favorite corgi wearing a crown. William and Kate were paired up inside a bright tandem sweater with a gingerbread man pattern. Harry was wearing a penguin sweater.

Perhaps, the ugliest sweaters were given to Camilla and Prince Charles – her sweater was replicating Santa’s red belted suit, whereas his – Santa’s elf suit with a goofy red collar.

Prince Philip was the luckiest, wearing a 1950s-style Christmas sweater.

Even the corgis didn’t neglect the Christmas sweater trend, though their sweaters weren’t ugly at all, featuring a red geometrical pattern on a green background.

Ugly Christmas Sweaters Turning High Fashion

In the late 2000s, ugly Christmas sweaters attracted the attention of high-fashion designers.

One of the first brands to present an “ugly,” oversized with shearling sleeves, polar bear-patterned holiday sweater on the runway was Stella McCartney in 2007.

In 2010, Stella McCarney was followed by Givenchy, and in 2011, by Dolce & Gabbana.

In 2012, after the world saw the wax figures of the British Royal Family members in ugly Christmas sweaters, The Telegraph called the item “season’s must-have.”

While designers still strived to make the ugly sweater nice, fast-fashion brads went full kitsch. Mass-produced ugly Christmas sweaters began showing more tinsel, sewn-on bells, functional LED lights, and wacky details.

Even a decade later, the fashion world didn’t get over ugly Christmas sweaters, and we continue seeing them on runways nearly every winter.

In 2020, GCDS designed holiday sweaters with Gremlins and cannabis leaves styled to resemble Christmas ornaments.

Celebrities Seen in Ugly Christmas Sweaters

The ugly holiday sweater trend was popularized and is still followed by famous personas. Every year since the early 2000s, tabloids publish lists of celebrities in ugly Christmas sweaters.

One of the largest ugly Christmas sweater gatherings of all time was Taylor Swift’s 2019 30th birthday party when she encouraged guests to lean into the Christmas theme.

Halsey, Antoni Porowski, and numerous other attendees were spotted in ridiculous garments.

In 2019, actor Ryan Reynolds posed for pictures next to Hugh Jackman dressed in a green-red sweater with a huge golden bow.

The same year, Tori Spelling was spotted by paparazzi wearing a humorous Christmas-themed sweater. However, instead of a snowman or reindeer, it featured Kris Jenner’s face and read, “Santa works hard, but Kris Jenner works harder.”

Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, hosts of the Live with Kelly and Ryan show, showed off their holiday spirit and sense of humor in a conjoined fireplace sweater. Stockings hanging off the sweater and reindeer headpieces completed the look.

Whoopi Goldberg, in fact, admires ugly Christmas sweaters so much that she released her own collection. My favorite design features reindeer dancing in flirty dresses and heels.

Another lover of odd holiday knits is Kanye West – he owns numerous sweaters with foolish-looking snowmen, reindeer, and even some rather elegant ornaments.

Matt Damon wore a sweater with colorful Santa appliques for his interview at the Today show in 2011. Meghan Trainor went in the full holiday mood in an LED-light and tinsel-adorned dress at 102.7 KIISFM’s 2015 Jingle Ball.

Hillary Clinton’s 1998 green and red cardigan with a goofy Santa surrounded by holiday ornaments and real golden bells are the last, but certainly not the least fun example of celebrities wearing ugly Christmas sweaters.

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