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On Pyjamas
A certain DIGNITY pervades pyjamas, for these are garments which upon first inspection suggest SOBRIETY, RELIABILITY, FUNCTIONALITY. As far removed as possible from the scantily-clad, let-it-all-hang-out school of thought that begs for your attention from all corners of contemporary, mainstream entertainment. Instead, they conceal you snugly and with charm, in a way that somehow feels quaintly British and deliciously 1950s-repressed. Hence, you can easily envisage someone like MORRISSEY curled up under the duvet of an evening in a pair of cosy pyjamas, dreaming of unrequited love affairs. Images of him spreadeagled across the bed in just a pair of racy, tiger print briefs, however, come much more reluctantly to mind.
Where did they come from, then, these bedtime classics? Back in 1898, merchants in London were advertising 'pajamas' as a bit of a novelty fashion item. Yet long before this they were commonplace in India, where for centuries both sexes had worn them. FRANCIS PYRARD, a French traveller, was the first European to document them as a phenomenon: in 1610 he wrote extensively about his journeys, describing loose cotton trousers worn by the Portuguese as sleeping attire. By the 1920s, a pyjama craze began to take off in the UK and the US, and advertising slogans of the time pushed them as being 'gay in colour and made of costly materials'. Younger sorts, perhaps a tad pretentiously, gave them the moniker of 'smoking suits', but this was an affectation that never really took off. The subsequent years saw pyjamas gain in popularity, becoming a bona fide industry in their own right - purveyed by legendary manufacturers such as DEREK ROSE and a nifty offshoot for mega- brands such as RALPH LAUREN or LOUIS VUITTON, always keen to accessorise their punters to the hilt.
Stubbornly resistant to the whims and fads of seasonal fashion - despite the ever-present threat of those subversives who prefer to sleep in t-shirts - pyjamas are essentially always the same, tried-and-true 'thing'; the patterns and materials might change, buttons might be usurped by new-fangled drawstrings or elasticated waistbands, but the basic model remains ever the same, whether produced by cheap high street chains or fancy high-fashion labels. So, too, the comfort provided by the pyjama (which should always be the soft, high thread count, 100% cotton variety, never bastardised by vile man-made fibres) is unrivalled. whether worn in summer or winter. Forget hideous leisure wear, with its rustling synthetics and intrusive sport logos, which lay bare the poverty of imagination of those who wear it. Instead, extending the night time duties of pyjamas to lazy-day-wear-about-the-home is not only more stylish, but also a low-key, affordable type of luxury - slob chic, if you will. And wearing them when dashing out to the corner shop feels curiously, scurrilously decadent.
Those daring to venture beyond the front door in their pyjamas, however, will generally incur puzzled and sometimes hostile reactions from the general public: some will presume the wearer has escaped from a mental hospital, others may suspect him of sleep-walking, or of simply being a simpleton. Stares, frowns, giggles and unfriendly comments might therefore be expected. (One flamboyant stylist known to FANTASTIC MAN once ventured into the outside world to buy cigarettes in his fetching blue-striped COMME DES GARÇONS pyjamas; two passing youths hollered at him, alternately, "Drama queen!" and "Pyjama queen!", laughing uproariously at their own rhyming quip). Despite this, pyjamas have famously graced the great outdoors, unassailed, on various well-documented occasions. For example, the gang of teenage girls in LIVERPOOL who always wear them on the streets as a fashion statement, found themselves featured on the pages of THE FACE a few years ago, identified as a new style tribe; JOHNNY FINGERS, the SID VICIOUS look-alike pianist from late 70s new wave band BOOMTOWN RATS, who wore pyjamas on stage, in videos, at photo shoots, as his trademark pop star attire; JOHN LENNON and YOKO ONO, whose HAIR PEACE protest of the early 70s saw them hosting press conferences from their bed, informally dressed before the full glare of global media coverage, in pyjamas. Even the Paris riots of 1968 - kicked off by ANARCHIST and SITUATIONIST students, suspended from NANTERRE UNIVERSITY for using college funds to print revolutionary literature - had a bit of subversive pyjama action going on. Reporter JEAN JACQUES LEBEL observed of the battles against the police, "Literally thousands helped... women, workers, people in pyjamas, human chains to carry rocks, wood, iron."
The most eloquent placing of pyjamas within the pop culture pantheon has to be that paean to sweet love, PYJAMARAMA, by ROXY MUSIC, released in 1973. Listen for yourself; it's on the album STREET LIFE. It is not difficult to imagine ROXY's BRYAN FERRY as a man who wears pyjamas of the most exquisite provenance, day and night.