Karl Camilleri was seven years old when his father, John Camilleri, opened the first Model Shop in 1983. Forty years on, father and son have witnessed the way toys – and their owners – have changed but their passion for play remains strong.

It all started when John, who worked as a chief air steward with British Airways, and later Air Malta, started dreaming up an idea together with his colleague Tony Bajada.

Bajada, an avid modeller, had a hobby shop in Paola and John would often visit him at the shop where they would spend hours talking.

John Camilleri and his son Karl. Photo: Jonathan Borg

“Back then I used to travel a lot because of my job and I would see that toy shops abroad were very different from the little shops in Malta. They were big and colourful. So I got the idea of combining toys with hobbies, to do something different for Malta,” John recalls.

At the time, he was a 33-year-old father of two young children.

The two friends decided to take the plunge. It was not easy as they encountered a lot of resistance to investing in a shop that sold toys. But they believed in their idea, bought a property in Iklin surrounded by fields, and eventually got the funding from the bank.

An old poster of The Model Shop. Image: courtesy of the Camilleri family

“It was extremely expensive and crazy – investing in toys in a shop in the middle of nowhere. I had a vision: I wanted colours. In fact, the original Model Shop had red ceilings. I remember cutting the grass of the fields in front of the shop so people could see the shop window – the current bypass was all fields,” John recounts.

The Iklin shop opened just before Christmas 1983. Karl was seven years old.

“I remember us filling the shop before we opened. We were overwhelmed. The opening went much better than our expectations. We were stocking the toys children wanted – mostly based on Italian cartoons and adverts like Giochi Preziosi – our generation all remember the jingle of Giochi Preziosi,” he says.

The shop stocked toys and hobbies but, with time, the hobby section became smaller and John and his business partner parted ways, still friends to this day.

An image showing the outside of the shop 40 years ago. Image: courtesy of the Camilleri family

“The hobby trend internationally has dropped by 90 per cent as people do not have the time or appetite to spend six months building a model, and homes are smaller now, leaving little space to keep the models,” John says.

A lot has changed over the years. Society changed. There was the dawn of the internet and the explosion of social media. Today, children have many more distractions – including screens.

“Toys remain important in the development of children and teach them creativity. Children need to be exposed to play. Today parents worry about exposing them to play as opposed to screens and this has become more challenging as we have smaller families and fewer siblings to play with,” Karl says.

An interior view of The Model Shop 40 years ago. Image: courtesy of the Camilleri family

And as screen time, once limited to watching cartoons on television, became more present in the lives of children, toys evolved.

“Toys evolved as they have become fashionable. Before there were mostly traditional – 15 per cent used to be heavily advertised and the rest were the same: prams, dolls, puzzles. Today, the bulk of the toys are trendy,” says Karl adding that LOL was the biggest brand in the history of toys.

The reason: social media.

“They were very innovative. Inspired by unboxing videos children loved, they gave kids toys to unbox at home. Before, we had a toy trend where they wanted to show you what’s in the box and, all of a sudden, we had a trend where you don’t even know what you are buying.”

Karl explains that while the classic toys have survived over the years, they too experience their ups and downs. Barbie went through bouts of popularity and unpopularity whereas classics like Lego, Playmobil, puzzles, remote-control toys, construction toys, dolls and so on remained pretty consistent.

Image: courtesy of the Camilleri family

“Games and puzzles remain popular but for many years it was the stereotype game, like Monopoly and Guess Who?, which were still going strong. Now we see that young and old all look for strategy games.

“When it comes to younger children, there is a trend towards boutique toys. The parents have changed and they are the ones buying the stuff, even though it’s for their children. So today parents like to buy toys that look good on the nursery shelf,” Karl says.

Have children changed? Are they more materialistic?

Karl believes that the entire society has changed, and not just children.

“Today, people are wealthier when compared to 40 years ago. We see this all around us, even with the rise of food couriers. Whereas in the past kids would receive two toys a year, on their birthday and for Christmas, today a parent is willing to spend some money to get their kid a toy they like on any other day, because the parents still believe in play.”