Fashion is a pile of shit
In an industry dominated by trend, it’s bracing to see a designer rebel against the hackneyed desire to imitate a culture consumed by fashion-conscious slaves to style. Pam Hogg made her debut into the fashion world in the early eighties, taking London to the blitz. She left the industry as quietly as she came, but now the yellow-haired visionary is back, auditing her A/W 2012 collection.
‘Everything I do is impulse, nothing is planned’, says
Scottish born Hogg. ‘I used to go into the city of Glasgow regularly during the
early days of my youth, it was
dangerous and exciting’. The designer reveals during this period she wasn’t
interested in fashion. However, heavily influenced by the rock ‘n’ roll scene;
enthralled by boys and bands, she sought to create her own identity, ‘I wasn’t
told to, I just wanted to’. Art came
easy to Hogg, she outrivaled at the subject throughout school, never thinking
anything of it - ‘succeeding in that industry was always for other people. I
was pretty useless at anything else, I assumed I was probably going to be here
until the day I died […Glasgow]’.
After attending Glasgow School Of Art, Hogg followed her
creative flair, moving to London to consort to the Royal College Of Art.
‘Nothing was ever planned’, says Hogg, a mind-set she still bides by today. Shy
at the time, Hogg shares her disappointment in respect to her studies- The
Royal College Of Art. It was the London club scene that embodied the next
platform in Pam Hogg’s life. It was this crack in the rock ‘n’ roll designers
life where she discovered fashion, dyed her hair, and never looked back.
In a culture that fetishes celebrities and up-to-the-minute trends, Hogg revolutionises the
human desire to go against the grain in regards to commercial fashion. ‘I’m
more interested in letting my ideas become something, rather than doing a
sellable collection – I can do that standing on my head. Instead, I give them a
part of me’, says Hogg, who sincerely is her
own product.
Initially making clothes to get into clubs, the subversive
pre-Madonna caused hype amongst club-goers wanting to know where she got her
clothes. Inspired by the Blitz scene and all the ‘amazing people out doing each
other’, Hogg made her mark in the industry, and orders were in demand by
Harrods and Bloomingdales as well as dressing icons of the era such as Debbie
Harry. ‘Everything that excited me was bands, and powerful women [Siouxsie
Sioux], I was on a journey and I didn’t know where it was taking
me’, says Hogg.
Music still being her first love, the designer didn’t want
to live to regret, and left the industry as quiet as she came at the peak of
her career in 1992. ‘Music is my passion, but not necessarily what I’m best
at...’ says Hogg, ‘…fashion is what I’m best at creatively’.
For A/W12, Pam Hogg’s iconic geometric shapes are at the
foundation of the line. With inspirations drawn from bondage and the power of
the female, with infusions delved from her time in the club scene, Hogg’s
collection is far from demure. Her label takes a brave, stated approach to its
shapes and colours, complemented by elusive incorporations of lace and leather.
Hogg has strived to put the unorthodox back on the runway and back into
fashion.
If personified, Pam Hogg’s collection would be a naïve,
reckless, yet arrogant embodiment, sabotaged by the spirit of youth culture and
music. Interweaving sexual
fetish and pop culture with the sensibilities of female empowerment creating a
look that fluctuates radically from what might be considered trendy.
Her aim isn’t to produce versatile, trendy clothes to contend with the leading high-end designers, but to push boundaries in terms of fashion culture and create something not because she had to but because she wanted to. ‘I’m freer because I’m only thinking about what I want to create’, says Hogg.
After 15 years of club culture, Pam Hogg decided the ecstasy she gets from her creative zone is the best drug she knows, and therefore entered back into the fashion world with new eyes, still making it up as she goes along.
’15 years off will turn to 15 years on’ –Pam Hogg.
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| Image created by myself - Pam Hogg collage |
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