Conveying the Holiday Spirit With Gay Apparel : Dressing for Occasion: Musical Ties, Lighted Socks Are Available

Don we now our gay apparel: our socks that light up like Christmas trees, our musical neckties that play “Jingle Bells,” our boxer shorts festooned with reindeer.

This season everybody’s getting decked out for the holidays. Young or old, male or female, people are dressing from head to toe in Yuletide attire.

Even stuffy executives have succumbed to the holiday spirit. The Tie Rack in MainPlace, Santa Ana, had one customer swear off musical ties after his started playing Christmas carols during an annual meeting with 800 other executives.

“He was sitting in the front row and he couldn’t get the thing to shut off,” says Ziva Adams, manager of the Tie Rack. “They tried dunking the tie in a glass of water but that only made it play louder.”

With each passing Christmas, the amount of seasonal garb has grown.

At Nordstrom, men can choose from braces adorned with angels and Christmas trees, ties with Victorian scenes of old St. Nick, and socks with skiing Santas and reindeer.

Some of these novelties do not come cheap--the suspenders cost $110 and the hand-sewn silk ties about $35. Yet shoppers merrily snap them up.

“They’re fun and they can be worn year after year,” says Lenora Giovino, wardrobe consultant for Nordstrom in MainPlace. “Men are just going crazy over this stuff.”

Some bosses wear festive garments to show their employees they’re more like Santa Claus than Scrooge.

One Nordstrom customer, a company vice president, showed up at his office wearing red corduroy pants covered with green Christmas trees, a shirt with bright candy cane stripes, suspenders and Santa socks.

“He blew his staff away,” Giovino says. “He’s a very strait-laced guy.”

Giovino’s husband has worn his holiday suspenders to two Christmas galas this year.

“He’s been the hit of the party,” she says.

Dressing up like elves is a way for people to spread holiday cheer. Yet behind the frivolity lies a serious desire on the part of many to find relief from a world they might find hard or threatening, Giovino says.

“This isn’t threatening,” she says. “The world is such a hard place. This cheers people up.”

Nordstrom also has battery-operated socks and mittens with light bulbs that actually work and colorful hand-knit sweaters for women trimmed with Christmas trees, snowmen, reindeer, bows and wreaths.

“This will be fun to wear to a party,” says Beth Southern of Villa Park, a young woman admiring one of the holiday cardigans. “It’s different from your ordinary red sweater or green turtleneck. And it’s always in style.”

Technology has added to the variety of novelty merchandise.

The Sock Market in MainPlace has an array of socks adorned with wreaths, Santas and candy canes that light up and play Christmas carols, thanks to tiny batteries and microchips.

Computer-generated patterns allow sock and sweater manufacturers to weave intricate holiday designs into their garments. Oshkosh has tiny stockings for infants and children decorated with detailed pictures of trains, toy soldiers and Christmas mice for $4.75.

“Today it’s all done on computer, whereas years ago they used to have to do it by hand,” says Connie Gualiano, manager of The Sock Market. Where handmade socks would cost about $35, machine-made ones sell for about $3 to $15.

Thanks to colorful graphics, socks are no longer utilitarian but a key fashion accessory.

“Customers constantly call us before the holidays to see if we have our Christmas hosiery in,” Gualiano says.

Men who never strayed from black, brown or navy socks will now sport red and green stockings with bells and lights.

For conservative Kris Kringles there are more restrained holiday styles, such as black socks with just a sprig of holly along the sides or gray socks with a single black-and-white-striped Christmas ornament.

Men and women are buying boxer shorts adorned with Christmas mice, polar bears and hippo Santas for $12.99 at the Tie Rack. Young women wear them on the outside, while Adams has sold them to businessmen to wear underneath their suits.

The Tie Rack also stocks tuneful ties that play “Jingle Bells” and sell for $15.99. This season’s most popular style shows Santa lounging in a hammock under a palm tree.

“It’s an excuse to be silly,” Adams says.

Kiosks stationed throughout Fashion Island in Newport Beach stock unusual seasonal merchandise.

For baby, there are rompers, tennis shoes, sweat shirts and hair bows hand-painted with Christmas themes.

Jamaica Me Crazy carries rubber bolos featuring Christmas cacti and Santas, with coordinating earrings and bracelets.

The Sporting Life, a women’s boutique in Fashion Island, has earrings strewn with miniature Christmas lights, necklaces strung with jingle bells and red chili peppers, red and green metallic shoelaces and Christmas sweaters with snowmen, trees or sequined ornaments.

“We do really well with our novelty. People want to wear something frivolous,” says Linda Recko, manager of the Sporting Life.

“People’s happiest memories are of the holidays. They’re trying to recapture those simpler, childish times.”