By Paige Gordon
Christmas is an expensive time of year, especially for students with limited finances. There are numerous holiday parties and gatherings, and if you are a fashion extremist, you never want to repeat an outfit…ever. Dressing in festive attire without breaking the bank can be a challenge. One inexpensive way to stay within your budget while keeping with the trends is donning the ugly Christmas sweater. In this edition of Bold Beauty, I recommend the best place to get an ugly Christmas sweater, or if you’re crafty, I’ll give you tips to make one for yourself.
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Although the Christmas sweater has been around for decades, hideous versions of it started to pop up in the 1980s. Over the past decade, the trend has snowballed and is bigger than ever. Ugly Christmas sweaters are being donned on fashion show runways and department stores like Nordstrom have been cashing in on the trend.
With its affordable prices, H&M is a great place to start if you’re on a budget. Every year they dedicate a section of their store to novelty sweaters for both men and women. They have a selection of items that fit the ugly sweater theme, but also offer more subtle styles for those who want to acknowledge the trend while remaining fashionable.
If you want to avoid the mall at all costs during the holidays, vintage and thrift stores are the perfect place to find one-of-a-kind gems. The Salvation Army and Good Will get new(ish) stock all the time.
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If you are creative and are looking to have the ugliest (or cutest) Christmas sweater humanly possible, then make one yourself. Dollar stores like Dollarama and craft stores like Michaels are stocked with holiday-themed crafts this time of year. Just take an old shirt or sweater, pick up some bells, ribbons, bows and glitter and just go wild.
Step 1) Before you begin, put a piece of cardboard inside the sweater to prevent the sweater from being glued together.
Step 2) Choose a centerpiece for your sweater and work around it.
Step 3) Glue on your centerpiece and start placing embellishments around the centerpiece and mix in either hot glue, glue or needle and thread depending on what you’re attaching.
These options will help you get through all the festivities and photo ops of the holiday season. However, there is one final option for those students who have just paid their tuition and do not have another dime to spend. Go raid Great Aunt Millie’s closet. Just make sure to return her ugly Christmas sweater before the family dinner. Nobody wants to see great Aunt Millie naked. Happy holidays.
