I refuse to buy any more ugly Christmas party outfits this year – and you should too

Unflattering colours, shapeless sacks and everything covered in cheap sequins – no one looks good in the tacky ‘festive’ wear that floods our high streets every December. Enough is enough: it’s time to take a stand and stop buying these crimes against fashion, writes Helen Coffey

Christmas outfits that no one needs (Alamy )

I watch in horror as the scene unfolds before me in M&S, like a car crash in slow motion: a woman, early fifties, pauses by a rail of clothes. She solemnly scans the items in front of her, does a double-take, picks one from the melee and holds it up to catch the light. Put it back, I think desperately. Put. It. Back!

But my mind control leaves a lot to be desired. She turns instead towards the till, ready to seal her fate – the latest in a long line of women to make a hasty festive purchasing decision that she is guaranteed to regret. For it is Christmas party season, a time when women, regardless of age, class, creed or colour, temporarily lose their minds. Or, more accurately, their sense of style.

The insult to fashion in question is a pair of brown, sparkly, wide-legged trousers with an elasticated waistband. The only thing worse than a pair of brown, sparkly, wide-legged, elasticated-waistband trousers is, in fact, a pair of such trousers paired with a matching top – which, dear God, the woman has also now picked up – in the form of a shapeless lurex shirt. It has long, wide sleeves and a pointed, flaccid collar. This hellish ensemble costs £60. Paying £60 not to wear it would be the better deal.

Ask yourself: Do I really need another ill-fitting sparkly dress this Christmas? (Getty)

Though, truth be told, I’m not convinced it’s even the worst thing on offer. Competition at this time of year is stiff: so far on Britain’s high streets I’ve clocked shapeless tunics covered in sequins, sack-like tops attacked with a glitter gun, dresses with no discernible silhouette in oh-so-shiny satin and – the “classy” alternative – an array of garments wrestled out of cheap, stretchy velvet. And all of it in shades that wouldn’t look out of place at a school nativity: gold, silver, emerald green, letterbox red, royal purple. Not forgetting the ubiquitous brown, of course. In the cursed winter of 2025, sequins the colour of excrement have somehow been marketed as à la mode.

Everything seems to have been adorned with oversized bows or janky, plastic jewels and expressly designed to look heinous on the female form. Emily Ratajkowski couldn’t make this stuff look good. At a certain point, one has to assume there’s a secret cabal of misogynistic designers who have taken over the festive partywear section because they hate women. It is the only reasonable explanation.

One has to assume there’s a secret cabal of misogynistic designers who’ve taken over the festive partywear section because they hate women

We all know, deep down, how grim these outfits are. Every deeply unflattering iteration could be a “lewk” for a Cinderella’s stepsisters-themed catwalk on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Category is: belle of the bauble (but make it fugly). And yet, for some unknown reason, we buy into it every year. We voluntarily exchange our hard-earned cash for an ill-fitting monstrosity in synthetic fibres to feel uncomfortable in while necking cheap prosecco at the work Christmas do. It’s like a sickness.

I’m just as guilty as the next gal. Flip through my wardrobe and you’ll find the ghosts of delusional party outfits past: a stretchy, sparkly charcoal dress that emphasises every fat roll; a navy sequinned gown that makes me look like a potato in evening wear; a bedazzled number the colour of a Christmas tree that never fails to age me by 20 years.

I almost found myself doing it again – browsing H&M and anxiously wondering whether I shouldn’t just purchase a gold lamé floor-length skirt now to save myself from panic-buying a glittering “mocha” shift dress in two weeks’ time.

PSA: Step away from the sequins this Christmas (Getty/iStock)

But then I asked myself – why? Why am I enabling – nay, encouraging – this hate crime against women? Why am I participating in a broken system that sees our shops flooded with hideous garments every winter? Especially considering that this collective annual madness will inevitably lead to several thousand tons of sequins being tossed in landfill as every woman realises that she has, once again, been duped into buying an eyesore she wouldn’t be seen dead in come January.

Ladies, this festive season, I beg of you: step away from the sparkles and recycle something you already own and love. The only way to make brands stop trolling us is to vote with our wallets and boycott this ghastly bit of consumerist tradition. Then maybe next year we’ll finally get some normal-looking clothes being sold on our high streets – and not a brown sequin in sight. Now that really would be a Christmas miracle.