New romantic
Pam Hogg, who has designed for everyone from Rihanna and Kylie to Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell talks to Janet Christie about her latest project – creating the costumes for the National Theatre of Scotland’s co-production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Pam Hogg tells Janet Christie how she raided her archives to help dress the cast of NTS’S production of Cyrano de Bergerac
Pam Hogg, fashion designer, artist, singer, filmmaker and as it turns out, born romantic, sits in a hotel in her hometown of Glasgow, musing on love as she talks about her costume designs for National Theatre of Scotland’s production of one of the greatest love stories of all, Cyrano de Bergerac.
“I’m a total romantic and when I heard it was Cyrano they wanted me to do, I was like ‘wow, this is incredible because it’s a love story, like Romeo and Juliet, but with an extra dimension’. Oh I love it, absolutely love it! I may not look like it, but I’m a total romantic.”
Perched on a designer chair in Bluebird adidas tracksuit, pointy silver kick boots and an orange beret criss-crossed with silver studs hugging a shock of blonde hair, 5ft 10in and whippet thin, she could in fact pass as a romantic, albeit a bold and fierce one. A paradoxical blend of fragility and strength, as she talks about her passions: art, music, film, clothes, it becomes obvious why the National Theatre chose her to design the costumes for the Caledonian makeover of the French classic.
If she wears her heart on her sleeve, her principles are on her wrists, tattoos in black capitals, declare Honour on the left, above a crucifix that stretches down to her knuckles, and Justice on the right. Devoid of her trademark dramatic eye make-up, her pale eyes are all the more striking; clear and open, like Hogg herself today. She may be known for her bold and courageous designs, yet in person she’s gentle and warm, loquacious with a ready laugh.
“I believe in love,” she says. “All of my relationships have been love at first sight, across a crowded room. But when I fall for someone I can’t look at them. If it’s just a wee bit of fun I’m ‘come here you now!’, but when I really fall for someone it’s head down, really, really shy.
“My last boyfriend I saw across a crowded room and knew he was going to be mine. But I was so shy and he was even more shy, and when we spoke he blushed. A blush! That was so beautiful, the real thing. Then I saw him again at a gig and I was thinking my God, my God, will he speak and he did and I was trying to be nonchalant... But I’m digressing, sorry...”
Hogg is a great storyteller, and immediately segues into another tale about another boyfriend she had first seen across a crowded room then met again at a bar after a friend’s funeral, “...within seconds we were rolling around on the floor under the table, my dear friend would have loved that!” she laughs.
Given that this is Cyrano, where the self-doubting hero writes love letters to win Roxanne’s heart for the handsome Christian, has she ever wooed or been wooed with the written word?
“Oh I die to read love…” she says, and pauses, gazes out over the Glasgow street for the longest time, then says, “It’s like, will I ever love again?… because I hope, I hope there’s going to be another love in my life, and that person I want to be…” She tails off unsure, then comes back fierce, “I’m thirsty for knowledge about the world, so someone who could give me that, a wordsmith, I would just die.
“I had love letters, but I destroyed them, oh my God and I wish I hadn’t, but I had to move house in two days and couldn’t take it all with me.” She smacks her hand to her heart… “I was gobsmacked when I found them again and read them, what that person was writing to me was glorious, and I hadn’t given them enough time, because they weren’t the right one. But they had written the most beautiful words imaginable.”