Goodbye, ugly Christmas sweater — hello, holiday-themed mask
Share this post:
Forget the ugly Christmas sweater — the holiday-themed mask is the hot, new look this year.
“We can’t even keep them stocked,” said Beth DeNillo, manager of Bella Unique Boutique in downtown Greensburg.
“They’re very popular,” she added. “Our customers are saying, ‘If we have to wear them, we might as well like what we have on our faces.’
“It keeps things fun, keeps things festive.”
Early in the pandemic, there was some debate on whether an item associated with a global health crisis should be turned into a trendy accessory. Both Vogue and The New York Times ran articles examining the ethics of making masks a fashion statement.
“(How) does it feel to see something so associated with the loss and tragedy of the pandemic become part of a look?” Vogue asked.
“I think we will soon think of them in the same way we do sunglasses,” editor Chioma Nnadi weighed in. “They’re not the first functional things in our wardrobes to have become fashionable.”
And though it might seem a little uncomfortable at first, the Times said, “Capitalist opportunities often emerge from times of trauma.”
Launched April 10, the online MaskClub was among the first entrepreneurial ventures to market fashionable face coverings, offering branded masks featuring movie, video game and television characters. Designs cover everything from cartoons and superheroes to college logos and celebrities.
For the holidays, MaskClub has a line of Adult Ugly Christmas Cloth Face Masks, including a “Home Alone”-inspired “Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal” greeting and “Merry Sithmas” from “Star Wars.”
An offshoot of Trevco, a Michigan-based licensed apparel wholesaler, MaskClub grew out of Trevco’s efforts to secure personal protective equipment for a Detroit hospital and now donates masks to the First Responders Children’s Foundation.
So, if safety guidelines require you to cover your happy holiday smile, what better way to spread some cheer than with a colorful, cheerful mask? From Etsy to Old Navy, holiday-themed masks abound online and in stores.
At Bella, design options include Christmas-specific Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer masks, along with more generic winter-themed snowmen, snowflakes, penguins and gnomes. All masks have pockets for filters.
“They’re really cute,” DeNillo said. “We put our order in months ago, and we asked our supplier if we could cancel if we didn’t need them, but here we are. After Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, we were pretty much sold out, so we had to reorder.
“People love them.”