The news of Pam Hogg’s passing today came as a heartbreaking shock. She always felt so resilient and untouchable. She was such a force of nature.
Before I even really knew Pam, she was this person I’d heard of. When I moved to London, me and my friend Andy [Bradin] were fixated with her. We were hell-bent on trying to get into her shows. They were such an event in London, with queues snaking around the corner. Everyone wanted to get in. The front row would be people like Siouxsie Sioux and Nick Cave. It was a true spectacle. There weren’t really shows like that. We tried a couple of times and couldn’t get in.
I’d met her a little bit at parties, but I didn’t know her. Then one night I was with Princess Julia, at an afterparty at Mark Moore’s, and Pam was there. We just started chatting. It was around the same time I’d started this duo called Disco Smack, and we’d begun DJing at all these parties. She got us to walk in her Pussy Riot show in 2014.
That show, Courage, was a big moment for me. I hadn’t really walked in that many shows before, so I was pretty nervous. Pussy Riot were all over the news then, and the atmosphere was intense. I’d spent the previous years admiring her work and admiring her as a person, as an entity in London, and suddenly I was in the show. We actually closed the show with Pam. It was such an exciting moment, and honestly it was a moment where my life and career changed forever. From the moment she put us in that show, my life went on a completely different trajectory. I owe her a lot for that.
And after that, we became really good friends. We would go out all the time, I remember jumping in taxis after the show with Siouxsie Sioux, hearing stories about the Seventies and party all night.
I did all her shows after that, every six months — all the way until her last show in 2023. There was such camaraderie between me and all the girls, and she would always find someone unbelievable to walk in it, like Anita Pallenberg.
Backstage she was quite formidable. She knew what she wanted. And she made the whole collection herself every season. Apart from a few assistants, she made everything, every scrap of it. It all came from her hands. She’d come in like Hurricane Pam, and it was because she was so passionate.
We had so many good moments. One of the best was when we were extras in the Absolutely Fabulous movie. We spent three days on set drinking champagne with Patsy. I remember standing there thinking how mental it all was — Patsy with lipstick smeared up the side of her face, holding a glass of champagne with bubbles — and me and Pam right there.
She was always really supportive. She always came to my club nights and events. She was supportive of the community, of my friends, of anything I was doing. Even if she was sick, she’d be there. That always meant a lot to me.
She really was incredibly integral to the very end. She never sold out. She stayed true to her art. A true punk in spirit and attitude.
