Postcard from Europe: Sartorial shopping

A notice on the store door states that "footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted". The reason for the rule is apparently because the sight of shoppers in their nightwear is offending some of the other customers.

I must admit I was a bit surprised when I read this story, mainly because it strikes me as a bit chilly right now to venture outside in bare feet and pyjamas.

Who are these hardy and misguided souls? Is there perhaps a retirement home nearby, whose residents had got a bit confused and got lost on their way down to breakfast? Not at all.

The main offenders, it appears, are mums popping into the supermarket after dropping their kids off at school. They claim they don't have time to dress first.

Though that's not the only reason in the case of one young Cardiff mum, who said she'd regularly gone shopping at the store in her pyjamas until about a week ago, when she was turned away when she popped in for a packet of fags.

"I've got lovely pairs of pyjamas with bears and penguins on them" she said. "I've worn my best ones today, just so I look tidy." Did she know, I wonder, that the cameras would be out for the occasion?

The wearing of pyjamas in public though is not a new issue. Two years ago the principal of a primary school in Belfast sent out a stern letter to parents describing their PJs and slippers habit as "slovenly and rude". Did he threaten to keep offending mums in after school, I wonder?

Millies with budgies and scrunchies

And the night for day look is not confined to schools and supermarkets. A GPs' practice in Greater Manchester imposed a ban after patients started turning up for doctors' appointments in their bedwear, and there's also currently a Facebook campaign to "Stop Women Wearing Pyjamas on the Streets of Liverpool".

Back in Belfast a local journalist has been carefully documenting the trend, which he terms All Day Pyjama Syndrome or ADPS, while a student at a nearby college is writing a dissertation on the subject.

The women - and it's nearly all women, I'm afraid - are colloquially known as "pyjama mamas" or "millies". Their super casual outfits are often complemented by large, gold hoop earrings known as "budgies", because they're big enough for a bird to swing from them, and they also sport "scrunchies" in which the hair's scraped tightly to the back of the head to give a facelift effect.

Carol Allen says pajama mamas are a well-known sight in London

Attitudes do vary though depending on where you live. A journalist in Glasgow, who ventured out to the shops in full milly gear, including the scraped back hair and gold hooped earrings, got stares and sniggers all over the city but another here in London, who dressed down in slippers, checked pyjamas and a fluffy pink dressing gown got a disappointing result in her efforts to shock and embarrass the shoppers in East London. Nobody batted an eyelid - seen it all before, they said.

Perhaps the real sign that the country's going to hell in a handcart comes from another startling news story reported this week, again in Tesco. Two pensioners were allegedly caught having a "sex romp" in the bakery aisle of the Greenock branch. Now it's possible they were overcome by simple lust. But there is a suggestion that their bizarre behaviour was caused by confusion over the sight of all this nightwear.

Author: Carol Allen

Editor: Neil King