So I have an Ugly Holiday Sweater Party to go to tonight, but I don’t have any ugly holiday sweaters (possibly because I’m Jewish). So I went to a couple of clothing stores in downtown Malden, where I live, to buy find the ugliest sweater possible.
I found some ugly sweaters, but they were all really expensive. I worked my way down in price until I found the ugliest sweater in price range — and it turned out to be the nicest, best-looking, and cheapest sweater in the store.
I’d searched the place for probably 45 minutes looking for something cheap and ugly, thinking it would be easy, but instead discovered a pretty much linear relationship between price and ugliness. Why? How would I model this?
My working hypothesis is that there is strong demand for ugly sweaters owing to Ugly Holiday Sweater Parties. Or maybe it’s that people who buy ugly sweaters are older folks with higher incomes, and older folks with higher incomes have poor fashion sense..?
I don’t find either explanation very satisfying.
