Pam Hogg – London Designer

London design legend Pam Hogg is back this season, and riding high on fashion’s new taste for everything ’80s

Fashion’s full-on ’80s revival would not be complete without the return of Scottish punk icon Pam Hogg. The musician and self-taught fashion designer first made a name for herself in the mid ’80s with her glammed-out Blitz Kid collections, worn by the likes of Leigh Bowery, Siouxsie Sioux, and Boy George. And her eponymous Soho shop went on to outfit a generation of London’s underground until Hogg closed its doors in 1992 to focus on music and filmmaking. This past London fashion week, the queen of metallic catsuits staged her comeback with a high-octane show that featured Daisy Lowe and Alice Dellal on the runway and Gareth Pugh and Siouxsie in the front row. Here she discusses the reason for her return and what Pam Hogg piece every woman should have in her wardrobe.

V Why did you decide to return to fashion?
PAM HOGG I always knew I’d be back. I needed some new clothes to wear, and that’s exactly the same reason I started in fashion all those years ago.

V What inspired your fall 09 collection?
PH My collection is called “The Time Machine: Highway Wayward Women.” It’s a fusion of my imaginary galaxy woman warriors and old-time highway stagecoach robbers. I started with the future and traveled to the past with bright, futuristic colors opening the show, then moving through to black with silver and gold, and eventually blacks and grays of a bygone aristocratic era. The hair was Marie Antoinette meets greaser boys.

V How would you describe your design aesthetic?
PH It’s ever-changing. I’m constantly struggling to define it in my work.

V How would you describe your music?
PH Hoggdoll is the re-animated wreckage of Martin Rev and Alan Vega’s stolen Batmobile and a smoking ‘57 Chevy with Link Wray at the wheel. That’s how I described my last endeavor on my MySpace page, but it’s basically Cramps-like music and whatever inspires me, written and sung in a very over-the-top manner. There’s a new phase lurking just around the corner but I don’t know what it will be as yet.

V Who are your heroes?
PH All the hellcats who were, and are, true to themselves.

V What’s your greatest achievement?
PH My greatest achievement is still to come.

V Describe your ideal customer.
PH My ideal customer knows who she is. I design for myself but there are all kinds of women out there who say I design just for them. They feel they can take on the world in my clothes so that’s cool by me.

V What music are you listening to in your studio?
PH I work solitary and sometimes in complete silence. When I’m in the zone creating I drift off into another world and music can be a distraction.

V What’s one Pam Hogg piece that everyone should own?
PH I’m well-known for my cat- and kitten-suits, and since they are all-in-ones, you don’t have to worry about what to wear with them apart from the shoes. I also have an “I-con” collection of T-shirts with me in curlers smoking a cigarette, or me in the kitchen half-naked—that’s a favorite!

V Complete this sentence: London fashion is…
PH Probably the most exciting and adventurous in the world.

www.myspace.com/pamhogg