Friday, March 29, 2024

Lord & Taylor Selling ‘Funny’ Christmas Sweaters Designed by Whoopi Goldberg: ‘You Can’t Call Them Ugly’

Actress Whoopi Goldberg attends the grand opening Of SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Robin Williams Center on October 5, 2016 in New York City.
Actress Whoopi Goldberg attends the grand opening Of SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Robin Williams Center on October 5, 2016 in New York City.

*Who knew Whoopi Goldberg was into fashion design.

The actress and co-host on “The View” has collaborated with retailer Lord & Taylor for a collection of Christmas sweaters designed entirely by the Whoopster, herself.

Whoopi Goldberg's Christmas sweater collection for Lord & Taylor
Whoopi Goldberg’s Christmas sweater collection for Lord & Taylor

The exclusive collection of wool, cashmere and alpaca sweaters (featuring both white and black Santas, a Christmas tree with a Charlie Brown complex and an octopus/menora hybrid) will be available for $139 each beginning on Nov. 1.

Although the pieces fall into “ugly Christmas sweater” genre of holiday fashion, Goldberg prefers to call her nine-piece collection “funny sweaters,” each with a splash of Whoopi’s deliberately quirky fashion sense.

whoopi-goldberg-the-arm-me-139

Goldberg will promote her holiday sweater collection with a special event on Nov. 15 at Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York, during which the retailer will unveil a special window dedicated to the product.

Below, Vogue.com caught up with Goldberg to talk about how she’s changing the face of the ugly holiday sweater.

How did the collection first kick off?

I love what we call an “ugly Christmas sweater.” I have been wearing them over the years on the show. I once said to my work partner, “Maybe I should design some ugly Christmas sweaters,” and he told our friend Gary Wassner [CFDA advisory board member], who ran with the ball. The next thing I knew, I designed 13 and 14 of them. We ended up over at Lord & Taylor and they bought 11 or 12 of them. I was like, “Okay, cool!”

You can’t call them “ugly.” Mine are kind of “funny Christmas sweaters” or “Christmas sweaters with a twist.” They are actually quite wonderful, and they feel good. I have a lot of sweaters that I have bought from lots of different people over the years, but it seems that after two, three years the sweater quality has gone down for me, so I was kvetching about that. I think that’s what initiated it. But I love good sweaters, fun sweaters, and holiday sweaters, so I’ve tried my hand at it.

What are the special “Whoopi” touches?

There is a Christmas tree with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and on the other side, it’s a Christmas tree of how the Christmas tree sees itself, which is a big, lush beautiful thing that’s lit, and the lights light up. There’s an octopus; he is wearing a yarmulke. He has a menorah and he is trying to hold everything. There is a little boy who’s decorating the Christmas tree and he’s holding the yarmulke and he’s got dreidels; he’s got Christmas trees. It’s basically about how we are all in this together. There’s a [sweater that depicts a] family, which is like “what makes a family.” Everyone looks like each other in the family except for one person who doesn’t look like anyone else in the family, but it’s a holiday so they’re all together anyway. I love the Rockettes, and I felt that we should have reindeer like “Reindeer Rockettes.” It’s all in my funny, weird head of things that I like to see. There’s a great one of two Santas kissing, one white Santa and one black Santa, and it’s fantastic. It’s anything that will elicit a smile or an “aw” from you; that’s what I want.

It seems like there’s one for everyone!

Most of my Jewish friends are like, “The holiday thing is okay, but we are here too!” There will be a Kwanzaa sweater next year, a Ramadan sweater. I just want to cover everything. The holidays, regardless of what you believe—it should be a day, a week, a month of let’s all be together. Silly sweaters can unite us and what is better than that?

That’s what the holidays are about!

That’s what I remember. My mom always made the holidays magical. She always seemed to pull out of nowhere amazing things. It was a time where Walter Cronkite said, “There is peace in the world when it is Christmas Eve.” I bought into it! I bought into Hanukkah. I bought into everything.

When is it appropriate to break out the Christmas sweater?

I’m old school. I won’t break them out until December 1. For me, you get out of the turkey’s way; you take a breather.

Do you have a Christmas sweater that you first remember wearing?

As a kid, I didn’t have Christmas sweaters. We just had “sweater sweaters.” We didn’t have any money to do Christmas sweaters. But the very first sweater I ever remember wearing had a decal, like a poodle decal, but the poodle was a little weird. He had one eye and it looked like it had been hit by 14 trucks. That’s what the decal looked like when I bought it. It was pretty great.

You have quite the shoe collection. Are you going to match your shoes with your sweaters?

In my head I do, but the truth of the matter is my shoe collection exists for work. I have three or four pairs of shoes at my house. Most of them are Birkenstocks, and a couple of them are just, you know, wild, strange sneakers. I just bought a pair of amazing sneakers that Pharrell did and I am looking forward to pairing them with something.

How do you style your sweaters?

My wardrobe is very simple, so leggings or skinny jeans, a white shirt, and whatever shoes I happen to put on. I’m not the world’s greatest dresser, and I’m not a boring dresser; there is always something interesting on me, if it is a pin or a [special] pair shoes. During the holidays, if I could make sweaters that talked or sang, I would!

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