By Isabel Zermani
Growing up, more exciting than Christmas Day was my parents’ Christmas party, a black tie affair with the Who’s Who of our city dressed like guests from a Turner Classic Movie. My father donned his tuxedo with either the red or the black bowtie, to suit his mood. My mother bought a new gown each year for the occasion: always a surface of beads in black, gold, or one year, an iridescent plum that turned green when she’d lean out from the baby grand piano, singing a jazzy carol.
My mother taught me the basics of sewing on an old Singer, and I started my own holiday tradition of making my dress for the Christmas party. From scratch and without a pattern, I’d create a dress each year, finishing it as guests piled in downstairs — guests whose heavy wool and shearling coats I needed to be collecting.
I liked the thrill of stitching the last hem just in time and floating down the staircase wearing something no one had ever seen before. This ol’ thing? Well, I just made it. Other women I admired — artists, poets, academics — who returned to the party each year fussed over my creations. Debbie, a University of Virginia English professor with impeccable taste, sometimes made her own dresses from ’50s vintage patterns but with modern fabrics like raw silk. We talked technique.
That electrifying, tactile jolt when my fingertips graced a certain fabric struck me with inspiration. A lacy black trim becomes my cap sleeve. A vintage beaded sleeve opens up to become a back piece I build around. Sophomore year of high school I was very into the Rat Pack and ruched yards of burgundy velvet to a form-fitting, snaky wonder. With the staircase as my catwalk, I debuted a new dress each year, feeling quite fancy.
Somewhere in my adulthood, a new type of holiday party developed: the Tacky Christmas Sweater party. The thrill of sifting through Goodwills for the winter warm-goods of schoolteachers-gone-by did appeal to the vintage scavenger in me, but looking bad on purpose did not. Christmas was my time to enjoy everyone looking their best; I get to see unkempt people year-round. But, for the sake of friendship and silliness, I gave it my best.
I bought a reindeer vest and embroidered wreath slippers. I tried a red dress with the vest for a high-low effect — no luck. My husband’s too-small, pink Christmas tree sweater with pearl clasp draws guffaws, but my ensemble? Merely a nod of participation. Did I mention there was always a contest and I am not used to losing? One year, a girl made her own tacky sweater with battery light-up ornaments and cleaned up. She balanced the tacky-cute index I’d thought mutually exclusive. The market caught on to the trend and began producing new “tacky” sweaters, which I thought defeated the purpose. Then thrift stores displayed their tacky wares in the windows and upped the prices above retail. It became a confusing landscape.
At an office party, an organizer tried to appeal to both the old guard and the youth by holding Tacky Christmas Sweater and Best Christmas Sweater contests simultaneously. The Tacky one went first. Then the Best contest with nearly identical sweaters, some jolly faces now ashen.
With the bar shifting to be both tacky and attractive, I stalled out. While pulling clothes in a costume warehouse for a local theatrical production — the best use of my sewing talents and thrill-seeking compulsion — I found a Christmas tree costume built from tulle-wrapped hula-hoops with blinking lights and ornaments made for the show “White Christmas.” This was it. I dashed over to a large trunk of petticoats and dove in for a ’50s red sequined bikini. Long white gloves, candy canes and the star topper headpiece, I thought: Top this.
The night of the party I had my husband park past the hedgerow to avoid spoiling the surprise as I stepped into my tree costume, switched on the lights and tightened the chinstrap on my 2-foot star hat. I’m a long way from black tie, but when in Rome. My husband, like my father, wears the same thing every year — the pink sweater with the pearl clasp — not a tux. We knocked on the door, awaiting squeals of delight, perhaps a song request.
The party host opened the door with a big smile that soon vanished. She, too, was dressed as a Christmas tree — a tasteful tree. Something like hate brimmed in her eyes as she let us in. I got a telepathic message from her that was two words. We were good friends, but now. . . a tree-sized wedge was between us. To complicate matters, my costume was so big I didn’t fit in the room, as if I needed confirmation.
Though not my parents’ black tie party, I had forgotten a cardinal rule: Never out-dress the host! We remain friends, dependent on my atonement.
You can’t fight culture. Or bring it back to an earlier era. Sometimes you can’t even navigate it. But we are all guests at this party, so, to quote a song from “Annie,” “it’s what you wear from ear-to-ear and not from head-to-toe that matters.”
Isabel Zermani, our senior editor, prefers the storied — and dressed-up — life.
