The husband-and-wife team is on a mission to escape from the blandness and mediocrity of it. “We are searching for new worlds. We want to see and show things in a new light,” says Hollenbach fantastically. “Even if it’s in the shape of a T-shirt, a zine, or the like.” P.A.M.’s spring/summer collection, fittingly entitled, “Dreams Freud Dreamed,” was inspired by Surrealism. “Artists such as the Surrealists and Dadaists were all concerned with new worlds,” explains Hollenbach. “Dreams can help find them. Opium too can help...” Hence, the opium collages and mushroom prints, masks and bowler hats, and allusions to spacey krautrock and techno that are threaded throughout the line.
From T-shirts and vests, slip dresses, and skinny pants in balmy colors to the reversible silver “Moonshake” jacket, the clothes boast intricate stitching, unorthodox cuts, and obscure illustrations such as P.A.M.’s signature triangle, a symbol of the future. But it’s a future that envisioned much more than fashion from the beginning. “P.A.M. started as an abbreviation for a graffiti piece Shauna and I did,” Hollenbach reminisces. “She wrote Mini, I wrote Perks, and there wasn't enough room for both words. We also kissed that night, and went onto make more things together… hmm.” With Hollenbach behind most of the graphics and Toohey on the design end, the two have built an amorphous brand from their hometown of Mebourne. P.A.M makes music and films, publishes art books, and curates an annual art exhibition, Changes, with Japanese artist Skatething and London-based illustrator Fergadelic. “Even though we come from completely different backgrounds, nationalities, and subcultures, we all share a similar vision of the future of cosmic worlds,” says Hollenbach of P.A.M.’s compatriots. “So when we make things together it's fun, exciting, and stupid… and strange!”
