THIS WEEK'S FEATURE ARTICLES

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Nightie night
“Nice to see you’re so relaxed you’re wearing your pyjamas”, or words to that effect, a Quiz Master said recently to a contestant.
He had good enough reason: loose cotton shorts, matching shirt worn over the shorts, and both covered in a ‘cute’, pyjama-like pattern design. Anyone seeing this contestant walking down the street would have thought he’d left the house in his pyjamas. The trouble is, where we once knew what belonged in the street and what should stay behind closed doors – as far as garments go – these days it’s sometimes a bit hard to tell the difference. Today it’s colour, splashy or cute patterns, and garments designed for comfort. Flannelette button-ups seem to have disappeared from the pyjama scene – and pyjamas are not exclusively reserved for bedtime.
I say pyjama, you say pajama
History tells us that clothes made exclusively for wearing to bed date back to ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman civilisations, with lavishly adorned gowns for the noble classes, loose-fitting and cosy long robes for the rest. But nightwear came into its own when the Portuguese and British colonists ventured into India and discovered pyjama pants. And this time, it seems, it’s the Americans who’ve got the spelling right. Somehow, when the British adopted the garment known as ‘jamahs’, ‘paee-jams’ and other various spellings, they became ‘pyjamas’. The Portuguese adopted them first; the British soon followed, and took the fashion home to Victorian England. And that’s when what today’s children might call ‘jim-jams’, ‘jammies’, or ‘PJ’s’ became really popular. ‘Pyjamas’ originally referred to just the pants – ‘leg-garment’– because that’s what the Indian Muslim men wore: long, soft, loose and comfortable trousers, a bit of a change from the Wee Willie Winkie style of nightshirt worn by Charles Dickens’ characters.
At first the province of men only, it was when women adopted pyjamas early in the 20th century that they became an item of fashion, of course! Now ‘lingerie’, pyjamas were loose-fitting shirt and trouser sets made of various soft fabrics, perfect for lounging and sleeping. Then, in the 1920s and 30s, with pretty patterned fabrics, a little embroidery and a bit of beading perhaps, pyjamas ventured out of the boudoir and onto the evening cocktail scene, teamed with suitable high heels and accessories, of course.
Practicalities
Everything changed with World War II. When fabrics were rationed pyjamas reverted to being a utilitarian garment, for men and women. After the war pyjamas became more of a unisex garment in appearance, more functional, and more often confined to the bedroom. But nothing can keep
a good pyjama designer down.
By the 1960s they were back in the fashion magazines, now known as ‘lounge suits’ or ‘leisure wear’. However, pyjamas wax and wane in popularity and in acceptance by the (outdoors) public. In 1976 in one UAE state, staff were forbidden to wear pyjamas to work; Shanghai, host of Expo 2010, discouraged the wearing of pyjamas in public; In 2012 in Dublin, welfare recipients were told pyjamas were not appropriate wear at service centres; and in 2016 in Wales supermarket customers who wore pyjamas were banned. Conversely, however, in 2018 they were described as ‘sleepwear, the new streetwear’ by US Magazine.
Quality pyjama time
There can be nothing like the cosiness of settling down at home with a book, a snack, or the telly, in your favourite pj’s after a tiring, strenuous or stressful day ‘out there’ dealing with the world. And maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised (except in Paris perhaps – they’re very fashion-appropriate conscious there) to see clothing that resembles pyjamas walking past us in the street. National Pyjama Day, a charity fundraiser, is celebrated annually on 20 November and you can even get away with wearing those comical ‘onesies’ to work, apparently. In 1969 Barbra Streisand set a precedent for our quizzing friend by choosing to receive her Oscar in a “palazzo-bottomed pyjama suit decked out with sequins”. But Quiz Shows or Oscars, onesies or sequins, I’m sure some people are braver than I. Or perhaps I simply don’t have the right fashion garment. Hmmm. Sleep tight, everyone.
Judy Redeker

Wired for sound
The Walkman will be very familiar to a lot of readers, but did you know that long before the Walkman, iPod, and smart phone there was a Mikiphone? Invented in 1924 by Hungarian siblings Miklós and Étienne Vadász, the Mikiphone was “a portable record player designed to be compact enough to fit into a pocket or purse. It featured a turntable, a tonearm with a needle, and a circular metal resonator that amplified the sound in place of a traditional phonograph’s horn. No power supply was needed – an internal spring drive mechanism rotated the turntable. Everything folded up into a round metal case that measured just over four inches across and just under two inches thick, more closely resembling an oversized pocket watch than a miniature gramophone.”
It was manufactured in Switzerland and the music player was marketed as a “marvel of compactness” and boasted it was “ideal for picnics, car jaunts, [and] river trips”. Ads even extolled it as “literally the Eighth Wonder of the World”. It was indeed novel for its time, but despite its small size, the device was ultimately a bit cumbersome. The Mikiphone required that several parts – including small pieces such as the needle and the record weight – be carefully assembled and disassembled for each use, and when put together, it primarily played 10-inch, 78 RPM records – hardly a pocket-sized piece of media.
Between 1925 and 1927, Paillard manufactured around 180,000 units, but by 1928 sales had plummeted, and Mikiphones were being let go at a major discount as a discontinued product. Today, the Mikiphone is known as the originator of portable music and is a prized collectible.
Even the familiar ‘Walkman’ was called different names in different countries, originally called the “Soundabout” in the US and the UK it was called the “Stowaway”; and in Australia, it was the “Freestyle”. But in the land of its birth, it was “Walkman” and so it stayed. It has been marketed by Sony since 1979 and yes you can still buy them. There must be a lot of them lying around in drawers somewhere, as by their 20th anniversary over 186 million had been sold. They were continually updated over the years.
The beauty was that you could listen to your tapes even when walking.
An article in the Irish Independent on Saturday, 22 March 2025 is entitled ‘Rewind: How the Walkman changed the world . . .’
“Back in 1979, walking down a street wearing earphones would have drawn puzzled second glances. Thirty years ago, listening to music was a shared experience. The only other portable music device available was the radio. The launch of the Walkman freed music lovers from the tyranny of the radio playlist and allowed them to choose their own music. … It was the birth of the technology bubble we now surround ourselves with every day, long before the advent of the mobile phone. For the first time it allowed people to isolate themselves from others…. It also served as an effective ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. Way before the internet and computer games sparked the ire of parents, the Walkman was being lambasted as “socially alienating” and “destructive of relationships”. In an era when families all sat and watched the same television programmes, the Walkman suddenly meant leisure time did not have to be a team sport.”
If you have a compatible model you can download ‘audio books’ to a Walkman. Now we are more likely to use our smart phones.
Stephy George wrote in 2023 “Audiobooks have become immensely popular among readers. People seem to finally understand that audiobooks offer the same experience as reading and sometimes are even more enjoyable than physical books. Listening to audiobooks has many benefits, one of which is that you can easily fit them into your daily routine. Another key advantage of audiobooks is that they are an absolute escape while stuck in traffic or waiting in line.” Some of the benefits she lists are “Listening to audiobooks can help you develop active listening skills… you’re exposed to different accents and dialects which may be foreign to your ear, but listening to them over and over again can significantly boost your overall listening skills.”
The key is to choose a good narrator – the best I have ever found is Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter!
Marian Hearn

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