PAM HOGG for FRENCH FRIES #6

Interview: Agnese Torres

Photography: Jake Walters

Hair: Daniel Dyer
using Hair by Sam McKnight

Makeup: Sarah Reygate

Rockstar, fashion designer, activist and, of course, queen of the 80s London underground clubbing scene: thinking about her creative journey, it seems that Pam Hogg has lived multiple lives. Starting from her hometown Paisley - located in the central-western area of the Scottish Lowlands - she managed to tread big international stages and conquer the fashion world with her eccentric and bold clothes. Moving easily between music and fashion, thanks to her nonconformist approach and her magnetic voice, she fronted numerous groups – such as Doll and Hoggdol, just to name a few - and managed to impress the inflexible doorman of the famous Blitz Club, Steve Strange, with her daring outfits. Impossible to pigeonhole, Pam Hogg is a versatile artist moved by an inexhaustible creative energy and a provocatively punk soul, capable of inspiring entire generations of designers and artists around the world.

Throughout your life you have moved easily between music, fashion, film, art. Where do you get all this creative energy from?

I'm constantly in this mode, I never ask why, just where am I going to find the time to fit it all in. I started writing my "stories" over 20 years ago, all hand written in notebooks. During lockdown I painstakingly transferred them to a digital format they're still not completed. There's also a film I shot around the same time that's waiting to be edited, there's just never enough hours in the day.

You cite music as your biggest influence, in fact you have formed and fronted several groups. Among your numerous experiences in the music industry, what are the ones that have influenced you the most and from which you have drawn the greatest lessons?

Never live to regret. That's why I closed down my studio and shop in Newburg Street early 90s after going on tour with my then boyfriend Mary Biker. He along with Chris Connolly and others fronted the band Pigface who were an amalgamation of incredible musicians from Ministry to PIL. When they discovered I could sing I was dragged onstage in Nashville to adlib to a song I'd only heard a few times during my first week with them. As soon as I got backstage, Chris gave me the biggest hug declaring "You're part of the band now!". I knew at that moment music was about to take precedence, no one back home believed me, but that's exactly what I did. I left fashion as understatedly as I'd entered it and started writing.

You were born in Paisley, Scotland, but soon moved to London. How have these cities shaped your character and your creative output, in all fields?

My mother was smoking on the top deck of a bus heading for my aunt's house in Paisley when I started to emerge into the world, so I was born there but brought up in Renfrewshire just outside Glasgow. My enrollment at The Glasgow School of Art however brought me to the place where I felt I always belonged. It was my destiny, and it changed my life.

Talking about London, how were your first years there?

Receiving a place at the Royal College of Art was the reason I moved to London, but it didn’t have the same dynamics as the GSA, so I was a bit disappointed at first, then I discovered the Blitz Club and everything changed. 

It’s in London that you started making your own outfits to get into clubs, right? I think of the Blitz Club, for example.

When I heard about this place, and how difficult it was to get into, I dyed my hair peroxide blond then got behind my sewing machine. I was pretty shy back then and waiting in the queue hearing Steve Strange have a go at nearly everyone for having the audacity to actually think they could pass his inspection, made me turn and leave. He immediately pounced asking where I thought I was going, he said "You belong, get in!"  It was a new world. This I realised was why my moving to London made sense and was the start of a career I’d no previous desire to be a part of. 

Where did you get inspiration for those extravagant and unconventional outfits?

There was nothing in the shops I wanted to buy, having no clothes was always my motive to create what I felt like wearing. Later on it was having no money to buy new fabrics, then I realised I’d plenty around me that I could build walking sculptures with. I now merge in and out between the two depending on my situation.

That’s when your rise in the world of fashion and in the 80’s London underground clubbing scene began. From then on, how did these two paths cross and nurture each other?

As soon as I created my first outfits there was an immediate reaction from clubgoers, magazines, people in the streets, and other designers like Katharine Hamnett who was big at that time. Around 1984 Joe Casely Hayford was the first to encourage me to find a place to expand and utilize what I had, he introduced me to Hyper Hyper which was situated across the road from Kensington Market, the go to place for anyone heading for London. A few years later I was able to open my own shop in Soho, and started designing clothes I wanted to wear specifically for the clubs at that time. I've always designed out of necessity, and it appeared that what I had to offer was in tune with what everyone else wanted, as my clothes appeared in every magazine and music video mid to late 80s and early 90’s and are still requested today. 

Is there something you miss about those times?

It's sad there's nowhere now for designers to experiment and grow by having a place to test out and build on their work. Rents are so high and with everything at your fingertips online, brick and mortar shopping appears to be a thing of the past unless you're abundant in cash. With so many retail shops closed, there's a massive opportunity for small units affordable enough for young new designers and established alike to flourish again. It's a dormant waste, I wish someone would invest, I'd love there to be an outlet like this again. 

A memory of those years you are particularly attached to? And why?

There's nothing like browsing and trying clothes on and interacting. I especially loved that when I had my own shop, meeting so many fantastic people who then became good friends. Ian Astbury of the Cult was my first well known customer, buying for his girlfriend or squeezing into t-shirts for himself. He mentioned me in an interview in the early 80s at the height of his fame saying I was his favourite designer, that blew me away, it was also I think the first time my name was ever mentioned in a fashion magazine.

In your opinion, what remains today of the London of the 80s and of that cultural and political ferment animated by provocative subcultural and countercultural movements?

It’s difficult to put my finger on anything significant as it was feet on the ground back then. There's protests of course, but the creative force intertwined was what energised a movement.

In your life you have never even backed down from political activism. When and how did you start feeling involved in battles such as feminism and the fight for civil rights of oppressed minorities?

I've always been aware of injustices, a natural instinct. My father was instrumental in defining this by the way he moved through life embracing everyone as equal, that rubs off.