The garment and the joke are two different things, and both are still in the room. Christmas jumpers were worn straight in Britain in the 1980s, popularised by television presenters such as Gyles Brandreth and Timmy Mallett and by singers like Andy Williams and Val Doonican on their Christmas specials. Through the 1990s and 2000s they collapsed into embarrassment: the hand-knitted present from an elderly relative, the punchline in Bridget Jones's Diary in 2001. The modern version is a revival of the thing as a joke about itself: several media accounts credit Ugly Christmas Sweater parties organised by Chris Boyd and Jordan Birch, the first held in Coquitlam, British Columbia in 2002, with popularising the trend, and the Vancouver events grew to around a thousand people. Commerce caught up quickly. Amazon reported a 600% sales increase in 2011, and by 2012 Burberry and Jil Sander were producing deliberately kitsch designs. So there are now sincere wearers, ironic wearers, and people who find a mass-produced joke garment worse than a sincere one.