Park Boulevard vintage boutique offers vast selection of flashy, festive knitwear

By Monica Garske | SDUN Reporter

’Tis the season for tinsel-clad decorations, strings of bright lights, spiked eggnog, whimsical holiday music and, of course, really, really ugly Christmas sweaters.

With the holidays upon us, many revelers will surely receive an invitation to some sort of “ugly Christmas sweater party,” a festive get-together theme that has grown in popularity over the last few years.

It’s exactly what it sounds like.

Friends gather to celebrate the joy of the season by wearing the most abundantly adorned, kitschy and downright hideous holiday sweaters to a house party, bar or pub crawl. Think glittery snowmen, teddy bears wearing candy cane-striped scarves or a full-on scene of Santa’s busy workshop displayed – sometimes all at once – on one outrageously garish garment.

Fun, right?

The staff at the vintage resale boutique Frock You, located at 4121 Park Blvd., certainly thinks so.

Manager and vintage clothing connoisseur Kenny King said Frock You has become a hub for truly ugly Christmas sweaters over the past three years. Every holiday season, King said the shop receives hundreds of phone calls and inquiries from customers looking for the perfect vintage ugly Christmas sweater.

Given the high demand, King said the boutique decided to take the requests seriously and stock up on festive, gaudy knitwear.

“We get so many calls about it, that we have to just have fun with it at this point. We’ve completely sold out of our ugly Christmas sweaters the past two years in a row,” he said.

King and his crew of vintage clothing hunters collect a stash of holiday sweaters from thrift stores, garage sales and private sellers throughout the year. They clean the sweaters up, press them and sell them in the store starting right after Thanksgiving.

“This year, I think we’ll have more than 200 sweaters for sale. Our goal is to get them on the racks by Black Friday,” King said. “They sell out pretty fast, so the sooner you come in, the better the selection.”

In addition to selling top-notch ugly Christmas sweaters, King said Frock You really gets into the holiday spirit by customizing and upgrading sweaters on the spot.

“We have this big box of jingle bells and Christmas ornaments in the store, and if they want, customers can pick extra items to add to their sweaters. We can craft and glue stuff on to make the sweater even uglier,” he said with a laugh. “It really is a lot of fun.”

Frock You’s ugly Christmas sweaters cost between $15 to $35, depending on the style, frills and anything else the staff may have added to the garment. The boutique also sells flashy holiday-themed pins and earrings to help complete the look.

King said each and every sweater is unique, making a little knitted, individual “artistic masterpiece” in its own right.

“A lot of these could be considered folk art. Because they’re dated, many from the 1980s and early 1990s, they’re unintentionally hilarious,” King said. “The best part is that, at some point in the past, aunts, uncles, grandmas, moms and dads really loved these and found them great. And, you know what they say. Hindsight is 20/20.”

King said the designs that typically sell out the fastest are sweaters with busy, all-over print, including patterns on the sleeves and extra flare such as holiday-themed bows dangling from the sweater. Of course, he said, if the sweater also lights up or makes some sort of Christmas sound, it is bound to be a hot commodity.

“There are so many themes and varieties, but the common ground is that they’re all authentic kitsch and Americana. Personally, I’m a fan of cats or dogs on Christmas sweaters, or a Santa or snowman with an expression that’s a little bit creepy. Those are my favorite,” he said.

And, even if you’re not attending an ugly Christmas sweater party this year, King said he believes it is just good to have one of these tops in your closet to make you laugh, and curb the stress that inevitably comes with the holiday season.

“How can you be angry at someone wearing one of these things? It’s impossible,” he said.

Besides the initial stock of ugly Christmas sweaters hitting the racks on Black Friday, Nov. 23, King said Frock You will host one of their “Big Frocking Sales” in their outdoor space adjacent to the shop Dec. 7 – 9, which will boast a bunch of hokey holiday knitwear just waiting to be worn.

For more information visit frockyouvintage.com.