Show & Tell: Ugliest Jersey Shore Sweatshirts

    We're looking for your ugliest Jersey Shore shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, or what have you. Jen A. Miller (third from right) can be seen wearing a Cape May sweatshirt. (Photo courtesy of Jen A. Miller)

    We're looking for your ugliest Jersey Shore shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, or what have you. Jen A. Miller (third from right) can be seen wearing a Cape May sweatshirt. (Photo courtesy of Jen A. Miller)

    My friend and sometimes editor Jack Wright has called this “the ugliest Cape May sweatshirt ever made.” He hated it so much that he tacked an extra $50 onto the fee he paid me to write for Cool Cape May, with a handwritten note to “go buy yourself a decent sweatshirt.”

    I disagree with his position on the item in question, even if I did pluck it from the clearance bin from Wave One’s Cape May location. I think using the lighthouse beams in the lettering is unique, even if Wright – and others – say it’s cheesy.

    But I love cheesy, and I love the Jersey Shore, so here’s what I’m asking of you: Send me photos (jmiller@whyy.org) of your ugliest Jersey Shore shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, or what have you. They can be pics from last summer, or from when you were a kid.

    And let me in on the details. Did you pick it out, thinking it was the height of boardwalk style? Did a parent force it on you? Or was it left in the lost and found bin from a summer rental, and you decided it was so bad that you had to keep it.

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    Even if you’ve burned the photographic evidence, write me about that one Jersey Shore town item that sticks out in your memory, and then I’ll share the best – and worst – of the pictures and stories here. And I’ll tack on a picture of the strangest Jersey Shore race shirt I’ve ever gotten, which involves seagulls wearing sneakers.

    P.S. But keep the creepy to yourself, if you please. I often search Etsy.com for vintage Jersey Shore t-shirts and keep coming across this bizarre Bruce Springsteen cardboard model used to model their products. Like I said: creepy.

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