Agent Provocateur
The British approach to fashion belies that country’s straight laced reputation, with many of the most famous supermodels over the years having hailed from those shores. Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Lily Cole are just a few of the models who have become major worldwide names, and have done very little to persuade the world that they might be prudes. Many of the fashion world’s most edgy designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen have also come from the London scene – a key player in the world of couture for many years now. It is clear proof of London’s importance to the world of fashion that just fifteen years after being founded, the Agent Provocateur lingerie brand has had such an impact on the world of fashion and sexy lingerie.
It is telling that Vivienne Westwood should be mentioned in the first paragraph, for she has played a major part in the Agent Provocateur story. In fact, it is fair to say that the brand would not exist today without her influence. Westwood is the mother of fashion designer Joseph Corré, who along with Serena Rees founded the Agent Provocateur brand in 1994. His father, Malcolm McLaren, was the manager of the hugely successful British punk band the Sex Pistols, and co-founder with Westwood of the London fashion boutique where the British punk scene exploded – a shop known quite simply as “SEX”. The edgy glamor personified by the London store has been an influence on the Agent Provocateur brand. Indeed, the scene that existed in late 1970s London was rather keen on provocation as a philosophy. The Agent Provocateur brand has made a successful business out of taking simple, plain styles and then enhancing it in a highly individualised manner.
Agent Provocateur lingerie has been the focus of many an advertising campaign featuring some of the brightest stars of stage, screen and the music scene. Its 2001 advertisement shown only in cinemas featured Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue riding a mechanical bull dressed in Agent Provocateur lingerie and has been voted the best cinema advertisement of all time in the UK. It has been dubbed one of the steamiest advertisements of all time and has naturally become a viral marketing legend. Other stars who have happily posed in Agent Provocateur’s sexy lingerie include Christina Aguilera, Carmen Electra and Paris Hilton, and Minogue’s stint as the main focus of an Agent Provocateur campaign was bettered by the two separate stints by Kate Moss, in 2006 and 2008.
IN 2007, the company showed it was not afraid of controversy by choosing Hollywood actress Maggie Gyllenhaal as the face and body of its campaign. This move attracted criticism from some in the fashion industry who argued that Gyllenhaal was either too plain or too “fat” to pose in sexy lingerie. The negative comments were, however, hugely outweighed by those from people who were delighted to see someone more “relatable” in an underwear shoot and from many others who simply found the criticisms of Gyllenhaal’s weight as being the ridiculous tripe that they were.