Joseph Corré

Joseph Corré is the British businessman who co-founded the London lingerie house Agent Provocateur with his then-wife Serena Rees in 1994. Born on November 30, 1967, in Clapham, south London, he is the son of the designer Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, which made him punk aristocracy before he sold a single bra.

Broadwick Street, 1994

The first Agent Provocateur shop opened on Broadwick Street in Soho. At first it stocked pieces by other designers. Corré and Rees then started making their own range, and Corré is credited as the brand's designer in those years. The stock leaned on the shapes Westwood had put back into fashion in the 1980s: corsetry, suspenders, seamed stockings and bras cut to be seen, sold in a part of London that still had its peep shows.

Kylie on a velvet bronco

The brand's marketing became its signature. In December 2001 Agent Provocateur released a short film of Kylie Minogue riding a velvet bucking bronco in its underwear. In 2006 Mike Figgis directed Kate Moss in another. Some of the company's ads were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for being degrading to women, and the bans helped rather than hurt.

The 3i sale and the MBE

Corré and Rees divorced in 2007, and that year the private equity firm 3i bought 80 percent of Agent Provocateur for 60 million pounds. Control of the lingerie business passed to the investors. Under 3i the company expanded fast, opening 13 shops between November 2007 and March 2009 in the United States, Russia, Dubai and Hong Kong.

Also in 2007, Corré was appointed an MBE for services to fashion and turned it down, in protest at Tony Blair's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and at what he called the erosion of civil rights in Britain.

The 2017 pre-pack fight

Agent Provocateur went into administration in March 2017 and was sold in a pre-pack deal to Four Holdings, a company one-third owned by Mike Ashley's Sports Direct, for a price reported at around 25 million pounds. Corré went to war over it. He said 3i had turned down a higher offer from Quadro Capital, called the deal "a disgrace to British business" and compared it with Philip Green's handling of BHS. He also warned that 3i and its partners would face "a phenomenal swath of litigation actions". The sale went through.

Life after lingerie

His later ventures sat outside underwear. In 2008 he opened the boutique A Child of the Jago, and in 2010 he became brand director of the cosmetics company Illamasqua. In November 2016 he and Westwood burned punk memorabilia that he valued at about 6 million pounds on a barge on the Thames, a protest staged to promote renewable energy. The Soho shop he started with Rees remains the address where the brand's story begins.

Last updated October 7, 2026