When Pam Hogg started a band with five days’ notice to help out Blondie
There are few figures that have touched the highest fashionista peaks of celebrity and not lost themselves to the lofty elite quite like artist and designer Pam Hogg.
Maintaining a 40-odd-year blitz in the fashion world with her uniquely punk-inspired shock of artful, PVC suits and arresting lycra garments, the Glaswegian designer enjoyed an eager client base from new wave stalwarts like Blondie’s Debbie Harry to Siouxsie Sioux, dressing vibrant catsuits for Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga.
Even royalty had dipped their toe, Princess Diana wearing one of Hogg’s dresses as well as Princess Eugenie sporting one of her numbers to Ascot in 2013.
Hogg’s artistic flair had penetrated much of the haute couture culture, but she always remained a punk at heart. First spotted amid Blitz Kids’ flamboyant peacocking parties, a presence in the music world had always been keenly forged by Hogg.
After a brief flirtation in the band Rubbish, a commitment to the fashion day job would persist across the 1980s, until music began calling just as she was hitting her professional stride. Following her vocal cameo on The Garden of Eden’s eponymous acid house cut, Hogg would form Doll and support Blondie and The Raincoats.
It turned out that Doll was a hastily thrown-together operation. While some form of band was gestating in loose fashion, morale was boosted by client and close friend Debbie Harry cancelling a plane flight to come witness Hogg’s new musical venture in 1993. “They thought I was taking the piss, but you were first backstage and gave me the most thoughtful good luck gift, a tiny bronze hog,” Hogg regaled to Harry in a 2017 i-D feature, recalling the slapdash setlist that only featured the Blondie singer and former Ant highwayman Marco Pirroni. “Then you came back to London to tour with Blondie, and Chris [Stein] came and stayed with me, and although I said that I’d quit the band, he wanted to hear my tape.”
Stein liked what he heard, describing Hogg’s work “like a mad Nico”. With opening slots available on their UK dates, the yet-to-be-named project stepped up to the task with little in the way of preparation or even material. “‘I don’t have a band.’” she recalled telling Stein. “‘I’ve just written five songs with a guy on the bass, but if you want someone to open for you in Glasgow, I’ve got the perfect band, they’re called Hugh Reed and the Velvet Underpants, and they’re from Glasgow, where you’re just about to play.’”
She further recollected, “But you then said if I got a band together in the next five days, I could play the last few dates of your tour. It was crazy, they had to learn the songs so fast with so little time to rehearse – I had to do some kind of semaphore to tell everyone where to come in.”
It all worked out, however. Pulling the gig off, the settled Doll then supported The Raincoats as a fully realised band. Returning to the fashion world in earnest in the early 2000s, Hogg’s impromptu band hurtle had saved Blondie and woven an extra thread of mystique that would follow the rest of her life and career.
