Pam Hogg
They Burn Witches Don’t They
Words By: Molly Boniface
Dr Pam Hogg is an enigmatic and legendary Glaswegian designer that emerged on London’s New Romantic scene in the early 1980s. Legend has it that Hogg is consistently fashionably late for shows. Shows that are also notoriously difficult to get into. Therefore, I arrived at the Fashion Scout venue in Shoreditch two hours prior to the event, just in case. The queue for the show was an experience like no other. I stood, cordoned off in an orderly queue, whilst more notable guests formed a conglomerate outside the boundary lines.
Pandemonia, a character created by an anonymous London-based artist, was the first of many conspicuous attendees. Pandemonia has resided among the fashion world since 2009. Katia Ganfield of Vice aptly describes her as the manifestation of ‘Roy Lichtenstein’s blonde caricatures’ ‘brought to life as a 7ft Jeff Koons inflatable’. Clad in a full latex head and body suit with inflatable hair and a latex dress Pandemonia entertained the queue by smoking her cartoonish mock-cigarette. She was amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it. She embodied a critique of the very system we were all actively condoning. She describes herself as a ‘virtual person in the real world’, her very existence as an unobtainable rendering of femininity calls into question the workings of social media, advertising, pop-culture, celebrity, and the pursuit of perfection. She told Vice that she sees ‘the mechanism of fame from both the inside and outside. Just as celebrities presented their image to the public, I present the celebrities my image. At least I know I'm acting out celebrity’.
Next to join the group were Parma Ham, Dahc Dermur VIII and Léo Monira. Three incredible goth, fetish-inspired, high-fashion figures. Their appearances were evocative of early 80s icons such as Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy and Siouxsie Sioux, Hogg’s contemporaries. Parma Ham is an artist, curator, musician, and DJ. They have been a producer with the Serpentine Galleries since 2014. Ham is a proponent of goth, industrial and dark techno music. They wore what looked to be an Ecco transparent leather outfit, their face was white with black eye makeup with huge black spiked hair. Dahc Demur VIII also donned monochrome makeup, with hugely overlined purple lips, he wore a huge black hood shaped hat that he used to fan himself for the much of the show. Dahc Demur VIII, formally Chad Curry, opened the first Rick Owens stateside boutique in New York before moving to London, where he felt an ‘overwhelming sense of belonging’, it was with the move that he changed his name to Dahc Demur VIII. He is now a DJ and a permanent fixture on the London club scene. Also Among notable guests were Philip Sallon, club promoter and prominent member of the New Romantic scene and Brix Smith of The Fall.
The show began at 9pm, an hour after it was scheduled. It was titled ‘They Burn Witches Don’t They’. The collection was dedicated to the late Vivienne Westwood and all misunderstood outsiders of the world. An amalgamation of jumpsuits, gold PVC and Hogg’s staple geometric prints made for a bold and outlandish show. The capes and hoods scattered among the collection came to an epic resolution with the conclusive high priestess look, a larger than life, gold, sculptural masterpiece. Hogg’s garments are handmade in her studio in Hackney, she told the Financial Times that she had been up until 3am on the day of the show perfecting a catsuit. The experience was nothing short of epic. The collection didn’t feel like the most boundary breaking assemblage I could’ve imagined, but the crowd that it amassed and the notions it encouraged; that of embracing identity no matter how unconventional, was amazing and beautiful to watch unfold.
