Agent Provocateur

Agent Provocateur is a London lingerie house founded in 1994 by Joseph Corré and his then-wife Serena Rees, who opened its first shop on Broadwick Street in Soho. It made its name with sheer, colorful, frankly erotic lingerie and short films that the censors kept banning. Since 2017 it has been owned by Four Holdings, a company part-owned by Mike Ashley's Sports Direct group.

A shop on Broadwick Street

Joseph Corré had the most famous parents in British fashion. His mother was Vivienne Westwood and his father Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols; as a child he wore his mother's clothes. Rees had left school at 16 and was modeling in Chelsea when they met in 1992. The shop they opened two years later in Soho was Rees's idea as much as his: a lingerie store full of color and fashion at a time when British underwear meant department-store beige or sex-shop nylon.

At first the shop sold other designers' pieces. The couple then began designing their own range, and that range became the business. Rees ran a strict confidentiality policy for famous customers, which turned the fitting rooms into the kind of place celebrities talked about without naming. The early look borrowed from Soho itself, the street that still had its peep shows, and from the 1950s pin-up: seamed stockings, suspender belts, satin, and mesh cut very close.

The pieces people remember

Agent Provocateur's design language was always more knowing than romantic. Bras came in contrasting trims and scalloped edges, briefs were small, and suspenders were treated as a staple rather than a costume. In 2000 the brand went further, launching its first fragrance in August, a floral musk by the perfumer Christian Provenzano, and designing an exclusive "Salon Rose" collection for Marks & Spencer. That a punk-born Soho shop could sell through M&S within six years says a lot about how quickly the look went mainstream.

The films the censors banned

The marketing is the part most histories remember, and it deserves the attention. In December 2001 the brand released "Proof", a short film in which Kylie Minogue rides a velvet bucking bronco in Agent Provocateur underwear. It was banned from British cinemas and then spread online, which was a rare thing for a fashion ad in 2001. Years later a poll named it the best cinema advert ever made.

Others followed. Mike Figgis directed Kate Moss in a 2006 film. Maggie Gyllenhaal starred in 2007, Daisy Lowe in 2008, and Hailey Clauson in a 2014 campaign photographed by Miles Aldridge. John Cameron Mitchell directed a campaign with Melissa George, Chloe Hayward and Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann. The Advertising Standards Authority banned some of the brand's ads as degrading to women. Agent Provocateur treated that as part of the job.

The approach softened later. In January 2019 the brand cast the plus-size model Charli Howard for a Valentine's campaign called "A Love Letter To Myself". Creative director Sarah Shotton has spoken in the press about the move away from the overt cleavage of the 2000s toward an athletic, health-focused idea of the body.

Divorce, private equity and administration

In 2007 Rees left Corré for the former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, and as part of the divorce the couple sold 80 percent of the company to the private equity firm 3i for £60 million. The new owners pushed hard on growth: 13 shops opened between November 2007 and March 2009, in the United States, Russia, Dubai and Hong Kong. The cost showed quickly. By March 2008 profit had fallen 18 percent to £2.2 million. Chief executive Garry Hogarth left in February 2016.

In March 2017 the company went into administration. AlixPartners sold the business in a pre-pack deal to Four (Holdings) Ltd for a reported £25 million to £27.5 million. Four Holdings was a vehicle run by the people behind the London brand agency Four Marketing, with Sports Direct holding about a quarter to a third of it. The US business filed for Chapter 11 the following month, and its stores went to the same buyer. Corré, who had tried to buy the company back, called the sale "a disgrace to British business".

What the founders did next

Corré turned down an MBE in 2007 in protest at Tony Blair's wars. In November 2016 he and Westwood burned punk memorabilia he valued at about £6 million on a barge on the Thames. Rees went on to found the bakery and chocolatier Cocomaya and, in 2017, the underwear label Les Girls Les Boys.

Agent Provocateur today

The company says it trades in 13 countries. One loose end from the 3i years drew criticism after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022: franchise stores in Moscow, set up under the previous owner, kept trading. Agent Provocateur replied that the stores were run by franchisees and that it did not itself operate in Russia. The punk heritage now belongs to a sportswear tycoon's portfolio, while the Broadwick Street address where it began is still the first line of the brand's story.

Last updated October 1, 2026