Cult label Perks and Mini (P.A.M) has been a part of Melbourne’s independent fashion scene since establishing in 2000. Run by husband and wife team Misha Hollenbach and Shauna Toohey, P.A.M’s distinctive aesthetic is best described as visual pandemonium. Their seasonal collections of men’s and womenswear are characterised by bold print designs informed by visual puns and idiosyncratic imagery.
In their words, ‘P.A.M clothes are for wearing, for communication, they are made for action: dancing, cycling, jumping fences and nice restaurants.’
For Melbourne Now, Hollenbach and Toohey are creating a multidisciplinary installation titled The HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE of P.A.M. The idea is to display fashion in action with a hypnotic film that places their clothing in its perfect environment: the underground club. Visitors will enter through the doorway of a painted façade, high on the third floor of NGV International, to experience the tenets of colour, creativity and community that define P.A.M’s particular design vernacular.
Last Saturday night, the first stage of this work took place at a basement club in Melbourne’s inner city. Around 300 attendees, pooled from P.A.M’s extended ‘family’ community gathered dressed in a selection of P.A.M outfits past and present to be filmed absorbed in dance floor euphoria. Representing the active, community-oriented subculture that surrounds their practice is an important element in P.A.M’s work for Melbourne Now.
As they say, ‘We see what we do as adding to a bigger picture, a world we are part of, and want to perpetuate and live within.’