An Agent Provocateur campaign with Helena Christensen

For most of us, our 15th birthdays marked the midpoint of a spotty, moody adolescence, but there will be no such awkward periods for the sexalicious lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, which is celebrating it’s 15th anniversary this year.

AP holds a unique position within the high-end women’s lingerie market; sexy without being smutty, risqué but respected, luxurious but accessible, rebellious but effortlessly popular.

Compared with the conservative femininity of La Perla, or the high-maintenance Glamazonian image of Victoria’s secret, AP represents the modern woman as unique, in control and completely self-aware. When you buy AP you’re paying tribute to your body, it’s sexuality and its need for a bit of old school glamour.

Voted the #1 fashion brand in the UK’s 2008/2009 CoolBrands list, AP has built its empire on a foundation of gorgeous garments, genius marketing, a strong aesthetic vision and an overabundance of the ever-elusive cool factor.

The rise and rise of AP began in 1994, when their first store opened in London’s Soho amid a flurry of media interest and a queue of new customers that extended around the block.

AP was born of a chance meeting in 1992 between Serena Rees, a photographer’s assistant, and Joseph Corré, the lovechild of cultural provocateurs Vivienne Westwood and Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren. Rees and Corré had opened their first AP store within 2 years of meeting, and despite marrying and divorcing each other since then, they remain the joint creative visionaries of the label.

Their combined creativity has been the key to balancing male and female viewpoints in their designs, and they have created high quality designer lingerie with creative flair to satisfy both the women wearing it, and their partners. Intrinsically un-British in nature, AP rejects both of the nation’s prevailing attitudes towards S-E-X: sensitive prudishness, and at the other end of the spectrum, the obsession with the ribald. AP’s vision of sexy underwear is not crotchless panties and edible undies, nor is it frilly frou frou or body scaffolding push-up-bras.

Alongside thoroughly modern fabrics and designs, many pieces of the AP range possess a throwback appeal, and naughty pin-up girls are conjured up with retro corsets, stocking and suspender sets, 50s style playsuits, and lashings of leopard print, as well as perfumes and body powders in stylish vintage-look packaging, erotic fiction, and Burlesque pasties. It’s all housed in 44 plush, boudoir-esque, AP boutiques worldwide – most recent openings in Qatar and Moscow – staffed by glamorous ladies in the famous 50s style pink uniform designed by Vivienne Westwood.

Alice Dellal brings a tough, edgy look to the brand's sexy designs

Marketing has always been a vital element in the formula of success for AP, who have been savvy enough to utilize web-based multimedia from early on in their development, as well as cinema advertising, creative window displays, celebrity-packed events, sumptuous photos and their infamous short films to attract massive national and international media coverage.

They have famously employed some of the world’s most genetically gifted women to be the “face” of the label, most notably Helena Christensen, Dita Von Teese, Kylie Minogue in the notorious ‘Gentlemen, please stand up’ campaign, and in 2006 they launched the David-Lynch-esque short films ‘The four dreams of Miss X’. Starring Kate Moss, the controversial campaign very nearly melted their web servers when thousands logged on to view the highly anticipated films on their debut, and promptly crashed the site.

Even when their choices of models have been questioned – they were criticized for the short-lived campaign featuring the unconventional beauty of the talented actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, and (deservedly) for the use of odious brat Peaches Geldof – they both generated so much media attention that it put paid to he notion that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

New AP collection concepts and short films are eagerly awaited each season, and their collection preview shows are wall-to-wall A-list affairs. They even have their own inhouse band! A dirty rock’n'roll affair, Dirty Stop Out, created by Joe Corré with Luca Mainardi, Mick Jones of The Clash and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream perform at AP shows, and have scantily clad models cavorting in their designs in their many video clips.

Although AP has clearly embraced the celebrity obsessed culture of our age quite calculatedly, a rebellious punk spirit still exists at its heart, such as when Joseph Corré refused to accept being an MBE for his services to the fashion industry in protest of the government’s stance on Iraq and Civil Liberties. Politics aside, the continuing aim of Corré and Rees is to explore creativity in design and realization, for AP garments that are beautiful, erotic and wearable.

As Agent Provocateur enters their 15th year, they still lead the way for others to follow. Here’s to another 15 fabulous years!

AP’s Provocateur Pirates

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