You're Wearing That? Good Tidings, Ugly Sweaters Cover The Holiday Season
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- They're kitschy, comical, sometimes crude and may even light up or jingle: 'Tis the season for ugly Christmas sweaters, and ugly Chanukah sweaters, too.
CBS2's Vanessa Murdock went out to find the best of the worst among the arguably fashion-backward holiday crowd.
"I do love ugly sweaters," said Joshua Gonzalez of Farmingville, N.Y.
"I'm huge fan of lights, so if you're gonna see my ugly sweater you're going to see it from a mile away," said Gabriella Gallardo, also of Farmingville, who sported a sweater certainly merry and bright.
What qualifies as the ugliest though?
"Stuff all over it, sleeves back, all over the place," said Kelly Fitzpatrick of Coram, N.Y.
Fitzpatrick said she really gets into her ugly sweaters, mixing with the other jolly folk at Everything Christmas in Lake Grove, where ugly sweaters have been a mainstay for the past five years.
"They haven't gotten uglier, I can tell you that," said Ben Carrizzo, Fitzpatrick's business partner.
There aren't just sweaters for humans, but for your beer, too.
"I think they're cool. I've got a few myself," said Laurette Morgan of Miller Place, N.Y.
Laurette Morgan admitted her Christmas sweaters are vintage, but are they ugly?
"Not at all, not all," she said.
She wasn't alone. To prove it, Fashion Institute of Technology Associate Professor Lisa Donofrio said the Christmas sweater story began in the early 1950s.
"They were the typical Norman Rockwell-type family," she said. "On Christmas Day, mom and dad would wear them and go caroling."
In the 1980s, people wore them for real.
"They were considered beautiful and embellished," Donofrio said.
Donofrio actually designed them in the late '80s and early '90s.
"A lot of coloring and rendering, it was more like artwork," she said, adding some of her designs sold for $70 to $125.
Today, you can find them for way less, but so seems the quality.
Is she at all offended that Americans now consider these sweaters ugly?
"Not at all, I think its part of the times," Donofrio said. "I think it's so much fun."
Good tidings they certainly bring to you and your kin, during this most wonderful time of year.