“Trust the Manolo, if you wear this and no one tries to stop you, you have no friends.”

Ah, another coffee-sprayed monitor inspired by the Manolo!

These are positively the WORSE sweaters that I have ever seen.

But there is an evil side of me that thinks that they would make a perfect gift for some of those not so dear and loving family members.

Should we try to rescue the sweater model in gold pants? Or punish her?

It’s not clear if she was pilloried in this photo shoot, or if she’s overdue for a whippin’.

Sadly, if I went out in one of those sweaters, my darling friends would take phone pictures and send them around. Now that I think of it, it might be phone to photoshop some of my nearest and dearest into the Antler Dance sweater.

Those sweaters make me want to crawl in a corner, and weep copiously.

Noooo, not Mr. Darcy!!! That hurts.

It is, alas, true that elementary school teachers are much given to wearing holiday sweaters. Also holiday jewelry. My sister, who teaches third grade, owns many samples of both.

Hmmm, I think the joke may be on us. In fact, I think that Leslie, the collector and model of the sweaters of gems, may be in actual fact the superfantastic girl. I am quite serious. If you go up to the main page of the site, you can read press on her sweater collection, her r.v., her band (Leslie and the Lys) and download clips of her music.

Yes indeed – shocking as it may seem at first, I belive this Leslie she is the superfantastic girl. I am seriously considering going to see her band when the play in Worcester, Mass, in several weeks.

I concur with the Imelda Blahnik that the Leslie Hall is wearing the sweaters ironically. I wonder, did the Harriet Miers get the joke?

The Diva Leigh finds that the only thing more unattractive than the holiday sweater is its ugly cousin, the holiday sweatshirt. There is nothing that says “I am completely bereft of both good taste and good sense” more than an orange sweatshirt with a Halloween scene or a red sweatshirt with a big Christmas tree tacked onto it.

The Canadienne, she hates these horrifying holiday sweaters. But even the horrible reindeer sweatshirt cannot disguise the true magnificence of the Colin Firth!

The desertwind just checked out more of the Leslie Hall’s site. A true post-modern Art Goddess!!!! I think her paintings are the real deal.

Those sweaters must be an homage to her Roots in The Midwest.

Leda Horticulture (and the Annalucia greatly admires your nom d’ecran, are you a fan of the Dorothy Parker?), well, she has not been to the Target lately but she would not be surprised to see the Tax Sweater, or something very like it, already on the shelves. The Bird Flu Sweater would require a skilled knitter whose artistic sense was closely akin to that of Mr. Edward Gorey as well as to that of Mr. Hieronymus Bosch, and it is a fond hope of the Annalucia that no such person actually exist.

What I want to know is where do people buy these sweaters? I swear, pre-college, I had at least one teacher in every grade level wearing these kinds of sweaters. Since then, I have vowed to never be that teacher.

I would wear the Halloween one! Even though I wouldn’t be super fantastic that day, some of the designs are very cheerful, especially when I am alone.

Also, I hope the Manolo doesn’t mind beaded vintage purses, because I think they are beautiful, and the weight and coolness of the beads, whether metal or glass, is sensual and gratifying. (the plastic ones, not so much.) I’ve also seen a couple of vintage beaded sweaters that are really striking, even though they are heavy from the glass beads. Some are rather like quilts in the artist’s choices of color, designs, and always hand sewing.

Perhaps the sweater and the purse not worn together.

Truly terrible. But how I love Mr Darcy. *drools*

The Hussified’s Grandmother, she indeed owns the holiday sweater collection for all of the holidays on the Julian calendar. Including, to the Hussified’s eternal shame, a sweater of the Halloween in the VEST design. The Hussified has tried for many of the years to convince the Grandmother that this is not the fashion, but Grandmom is the stubborn biddy and will not be swayed. Viva la Bad Fashioned Grandmom!

My mother in law (a retired teacher) owns many holiday sweaters and vests. She drags them out when seasonally appropriate.

As I can’t stand the woman I never fail to compliment her holiday festivenss in attire. (Oh the irony…)

As for Mr. Darcy… as a true lover of all things Colin Firth and Bridget Jones, we know that Mr. Darcy’s evil mother is the supplier of these holiday jumpers and he abhors them yet is the faithful and loving son who indulges his poor, tasteless mother.

If anything these sweaters make Thanksgiving and the Holidays with the fiance’s family SO much less painful.

willow, I feel your pain. My mother has been wearing holiday sweaters for some time. She’s got a halloween one (which she also wears to Clemson games) and quite a few Christmas ones. I think she buys them at the mall the day after Christmas, when they’re marked down 80%.

But but, its so much FUN to knit terrifying sweaters. My children and I used to consider one a success if we could imagine it creeping out from underneath the sofa at night to attack.
Nowdays I knit them classical designs of great rectitude.

I can personally vouch for the Midwest appeal of the holiday sweatshirt. I can’t count on two hands how many holiday sweatshirts I had to pretend I liked and wear as a child. And to make matters worse, there were the red/brown reindeer headbands, the christmas-light earrings, the christmas bell necklace, christmas glittery nail polish, and matching Christmas-tree-covered socks. Not only was it poor style, it was sensory overload.

I bet this poor child gets beaten up at school.

The supervisor of the ginny has probably already purchased most of the hats of the blinking light antlers, thus saving many children from the beatings of the bullies. She believes the supervisor is giving them to older relations, who are expected to fend off attacks.

It is the ginny’s belief that her supervisor ordered everything out of the catalog of the trading orientals, and that once again the ginny and her poor cow-orkers may look forward to yet another Christmas coffee mug of the simpering horror. Or perhaps the horror of the blinking antlers is to be visited upon them all, like the eleventh plague of the Egypts.