The unstoppable rise of the Christmas jumper

A novelty Christmas jumper is as much a feature of the office Christmas party as injudicious snogging and reckless misuse of the photocopier.

"Obnoxious and tacky" in the eyes of some, but undeniably "kind of wholesome", said CNN, the garment has had its ups and downs over history.

'Uncomely cheer'

Festive-themed jumpers "started making an appearance" in the US in the 1950s, said CNN, "a nod perhaps to the holiday's growing commercialisation". Known at the time as "jingle bell sweaters", they "found little popularity in the market", although they were "really embraced" by TV crooners like Val Doonican and Andy Williams.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Christmas jumpers finally "hit the mainstream" in the 1980s when "goofball dad characters" in movies like "National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation" transformed them into an "uncomely but endearing expression of cheer". They might not have been "cool" but they "radiated yule", and would be "sported at office parties" and on Christmas Day.

During the 1990s the festive sweater "faded in popularity" and by the turn of the millennium, the garment was "widely considered" an "eyebrow-raising sartorial mishap".

Ironic abominations

It took a rom-com to turn things round, said The Telegraph, and "knitwear historians" will see 2001's "Bridget Jones' Diary" as a "turning point", when "humour and desirability gained the edge over naffness". The reindeer jumper sported by Colin Firth's character Mark Darcy may have been ugly, but his willingness to wear the abomination his mother had knitted him told the viewer that he was a "good chap". "The lesson was clear": the Christmas jumper was a sign of a "desirable mate", while anyone without one must be a "despicable cad who doesn't love his mum".

The woollen worm had turned: from being "Aunt Agatha's unwanted gift", they were suddenly "dead stylish", or at the very least "ironic wear", complete with "misshapen snowmen", carrots that "protruded suggestively" or garish designs that gave onlookers "the first rumblings of a migraine".

"The moment someone wore the garment in a humorous way, people started seeing the comic side of it," Brian Miller, co-author of a book on the Christmas sweater phenomenon, told CNN.

By 2012, Christmas jumpers were "everywhere", said The Telegraph, and they'd "finally shed the slippery skin of naffness, and irony". Stella McCartney released a polar bear-themed jumper and fellow fashion giants Givenchy and Dolce & Gabbana followed suit. A galaxy of stars, including Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Jimmy Fallon, have also embraced the trend.

Nigh-on criminal

But they still have their critics. "No one with style", or even "the most basic standards of human decency", is wearing a jumper "with bells on it", said Anna Murphy, fashion director at The Times. In fact, to do so is a "nigh-on criminal act".

For "reasons that may well need collective psychoanalysis", men are "far more likely to embrace" the Christmas jumper, but there are "far better ways to let off sartorial steam" – including the "radical notion" of "wearing something you look really great in".

But the rise of social media has "only heightened" the "It" status of the Christmas jumper, said CNN, and we now "compete" to "show off our Christmas-sweater love" on Instagram and other platforms. They're "democratic" and "a lot of fun", said Miller. Christmas can be "quite stressful" and "wearing something ridiculous" can "help take the pressure off".