NEW YORK — Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph and the big guy, Mr. Claus himself — immortalized in the hearts and minds of the young and young at heart. But those icons of December show up in more concrete manifestations of the holiday season as well, from greeting cards and gift wrap to tableware to that most flagrant expression of Yuletide spirit — the Christmas sweater.
While fashion types may bristle in horror at the thought of parading craven Kringle imagery on one’s bosom to signal heartfelt holiday cheer, a Sunday post-Thanksgiving brunch at the very decorated Tavern on the Green or a stroll across Rockefeller Plaza indicates that legions of women feel otherwise. On winter’s first snowy Sunday at the former, Dancer, Prancer and candy-cane motifs were the look du jour, and many women proudly professed to owning two or three such sweaters. Not, however, Susan White of Houston, who boasts a collection of about 20 such gems, collected over nearly 15 years. “I just love them. They’re so much fun,” says the unrepentant White, whose sweater depicting Santa on a delivery run was complemented by a Santa watch. “I also have a big box of Christmas jewelry.” (Whimsical jewelry makes a less-demonstrative way of wearing the holiday spirit, if not on the sleeve, then on the lapels, ears or neck.)
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For mass and moderate retailers, Christmas and other novelty, holiday-themed sweaters are a fringe business. For their manufacturers, though, such knits can account for a substantial part of annual sales. Denise Filchner, vice president of merchandising for Federated Department Stores, notes the strong performance of Christmas knitwear, part of the overall strength of the sweater business. “As far as just the Christmas motifs, we have a very healthy business,” she said. At Macy’s Herald Square flagship, sweaters from the private label Charter Club dominate, placed prominently on mannequins and a table display. But the store offers a range of other moderate sweaters as well, from resources such as Tiara International, Jennifer Moore, Erika and Designer Originals. The prices range from $35 to $69.
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Conversely, Lord & Taylor stocks one label only for holiday-themed knits: the better-priced Marisa Christina, which offers matching mother-daughter motifs that range from $98 to $118 for mom, and $58 to $64 for kids, as well as a teddy bear outfitted in a red Christmas tree pullover for $34. “It’s just a very traditional business that we always expect to have,” says LaVelle Olexa, senior vice president for fashion merchandising. “It’s not a large or growing business, but there are very few left at the end of the season.”
Some in the business maintain that to look at the festive fare as December-only wear is to be too narrow-minded. “Many of our sweaters are really just winter sweaters with a twist,” says Marisa Christina chief executive officer Michael Lerner. “They can be worn throughout the winter and not just in association with Christmas.”
Nor does the Yuletide have a lock on the novelty merch niche, as other companies have looked to expand seasonal spirit of the wearable sort to other holidays. Marisa Christina, for example, offers a few looks for Easter and for Halloween. Tiara International specializes in moderately priced seasonally themed sweaters and also covers Halloween, Easter, harvest time and Valentine’s Day, although they account for only half of its novelty business, according to executive vice president Irene Leung. Hampshire Designer Originals does about 20 percent of its business in holiday novelties via its Designer Originals Studio label. While Christmas remains “the big mama,” according to executive vice president of sales and marketing Hank Sinkel, it also offers Halloween and Valentine’s Day fare. Sinkel says the label is available at May Company, Federated, Saks Inc. and J.C. Penney stores. At Kmart, Halloween-themed apparel has grown in popularity in recent years. The store has also tested screened T-shirts for Easter, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but with mixed results.
Still, Christmas remains the stuffed goose and mashed potatoes at a novelty knits feast that has traditionally played to the cookie-baking mom set. “Women in New York still tend to dress in black a lot,” says Marisa Christina’s Lerner. “You’re up against that to a large extent in urban areas. But if you go to a mall in New Jersey, it’s a whole different world.” To wit, that firm marks its sweater labels with the year, so that customers can keep their collections straight.
“It’s a very family-oriented, church-going sort of crowd, which really encompasses a majority of middle America,” says Tiara International’s Leung of the market. “Interestingly, the Bible Belt reacts first. They start buying in July.” According to Hampshire’s Sinkel, the sweaters do remarkably well in the Southeast, Texas and New England.
At least one player prominent in the field claims that the demographics are expanding — and not in girth. Michael Simon’s women’s and children’s sweaters veer toward the high end of the market — women’s priced from $78 to $300 and children’s, from $50 to $100. This season, Simon also designed a line of holiday-themed sweaters for the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
“A lot of it is the mom domain,” says Simon of the typical customer. “But because of newer, updated pieces, we’re hitting a younger group now. The new customer isn’t married. She’s the one who’s going out to a Christmas party and showing off a little.” Whether Simon’s new Nativity motif cardigan, priced at $159, is skewing young remains a question, although it made its way into the Neiman Marcus catalogue and, says Simon, “They’ve told me it’s a new bestseller.”
Gap is also bent on notching up the cool quotient of holiday-motif merch with its multicolored “crazy Fair Isle” and a snowflake intarsia sweater. The promotion includes a a snow-filled TV spot, along with print ads featuring actress Katie Holmes and extensive window displays.“We feel that we almost own winter because no one really does holiday like we do. We treat holiday as a real winter gift-giving collection,” says a Gap spokesperson. “It’s very much what people can relate to. And it’s not dowdy.”
Indeed there seems to be room for the vaguely seasonal sweater that doesn’t scream “Ho, ho, ho!” “The customer is gravitating toward something that is a bit less whimsical where the design is not so in-your-face,” says Macy’s Filchner. “They’re a bit more subtle.”
Still, for some, no holiday sweater is subtle enough, as evidenced by a quick survey of major retailers in Manhattan. The closest Saks Fifth Avenue gets to a holiday sweater is a private label line of cashmere “Apres Ski” intarsias with loosely seasonal themes, such as martini glasses, although a saleswoman did admit that some customers are on the hunt for more demonstrative fare. At Bloomingdale’s, “It’s been many years since we carried that look,” says senior vice president of fashion direction Kal Ruttenstein. “We think QVC handles that category very well. The holiday sweater that our customer is looking for is primarily a cashmere sweater in a pretty color.” As for the anecdote of the Saks saleswoman, Ruttenstein says, “Well, those customers are probably coming over from Rockefeller Center where they’re waiting to see Katie Couric. They’re from Kansas.” At Henri Bendel, a request for holiday sweaters is met with an icy look from a saleswoman. “Our customers know we don’t have them,” she quips, “so they don’t ask.”
Barneys’ vice president of fashion merchandising Julie Gilhart is more diplomatic toward the idea, although that store doesn’t carry such sweaters, either. “Listen, I lived in Dallas, and that’s the land of the holiday sweater.” Gilhart says. “It really suits that lifestyle better.”
Yet even some New Yorkers are not immune to a little wearable holiday cheer. For the city’s first blizzard of the season two weeks ago, Dana Tyler, CBS-2’s weeknight anchor, sported a cheery, red snowflake sweater on the air while pulling an emergency Saturday shift. “It just felt right for the news of the day,” Tyler says. “And the response was huge. A lot of my co-workers said, ‘My mother called and said she loves your sweater.’”
Even off the air, Tyler is a fan of the novelty knit, owning about three festive sweaters, including one with a Christmas tree. “I love stuff like that,” she says. “They’re irresistible. People want to talk about them. They’re conversation pieces.”
And who knows? Since the fashion crowd is always searching for the next, new thing, Christmas might just have a tres chic moment. “I actually think we should get back more to holiday sweaters,” says Gilhart. “We should just have fun with it.”