Inside Agent Provocateur’s North London studio, before creative director Sarah Shotton and CEO Ben Banks arrive, I make my way through the rails of lingerie. There’s a rainbow of bustiers, corsets, suspenders and stockings, covered in sequins, lace and leather. Some styles are reserved for the brave, with pretty severe, plentiful elastic across the body like a trellis. Some are more demure, albeit in shades of red or teal. To me, it all feels classic Agent Provocateur, the disruptive luxury lingerie label that burst onto the underwear market in the ’90s and added some sex appeal and costume to affluent women’s lingerie drawers around the globe.
But according to Shotton, if I’d visited the brand’s HQ a few years ago, under its previous ownership, the rails would have looked very different. “There was a time when it was dumbed down,” she says, sitting on a sofa across from me in the middle of the studio. “A few years ago [under previous leadership], I was doing more [basic] collections. Buyers would buy deeply into something [basic] and I would think, ‘You’re not going to sell that.’”
Shotton started out as a bright-eyed shop assistant in the original Agent Provocateur Soho store in her 20s, working for brand founders Joseph Corré (son of Vivienne Westwood) and his wife Serena Rees who opened the label in 1994. When Corré and Rees got divorced in 2007 and sold Agent Provocateur to investment firm 3i, for £60 million, Shotton became Corré’s right hand. After an ambitious global retail expansion across the Middle East and Russia, profits faltered and the company struggled to recover. In March 2017, Agent Provocateur entered administration. It was then purchased by Four Marketing, a distribution company part-owned by Frasers Group owner Mike Ashley, which distributes Stone Island, CP Company, K-Way and more in the UK. (Continuing its luxury ambitions, Four Marketing purchased A-Cold-Wall in November 2024.)
Shotton became creative director under 3i management in 2010, when Corré stepped down officially from the brand (he’d remained as creative director after the sale). A Central Saint Martins graduate, Shotton had gradually worked across every department at Agent Provocateur under Corré, from answering phones and window dressing to designing collections. But in the top job, below 3i and previous CEOs, she was under pressure to boost sales as profits began to tumble. Eventually, she says, Agent Provocateur played it too safe to try and broaden appeal, and leadership had too much sway on design decisions.
Now, under Banks and Four Marketing, designing is a dream again, says Shotton, gesturing to the collection. “It is very true to the brand again, what we’re doing at the moment. That’s why we’re seeing high sales even on the Dioni, our most expensive set, which is £1,500.”
Creating a brand people love
Banks, Four Marketing’s co-founder, became CEO of Agent Provocateur in 2022 to usher the brand back to growth. When he took over, he and Shotton felt they had to re-establish what the brand stood for creatively. “We had a mutual feeling that the brand had been a bit sanitised, and we’d sort of lost the special sauce that makes AP special,” says Banks. “The brief was: let’s really get our mojo back.” This meant returning to the brand’s bolder, more avant-garde heritage and costume roots to appeal to a smaller, more loyal customer base rather than trying to create mass appeal.
From retail to design, fashion has been homogenised in recent years, as brands play it safe amid economic challenges. “Not everybody will like you, but we want to be loved by a select customer,” Banks says. “If they love you, they will continue to buy.”
The strategy is paying off. Over the last three years, Agent Provocateur revenues have doubled, with sales expected to reach £50 million in 2025. Last week, the brand had its best Valentine’s Day in a while. Bolstered by a campaign starring British pin-up and podcast star Abbey Clancy, sales were up 20 per cent on 2024. Of course, some challenges remain: while wholesale and monobrand stores are performing, online direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales have seen a double-digit percentage decline “in line with broader market trends” over the same period, Banks says.
Underwear-as-outerwear
Following the Spring/Summer 2025 shows, where underwear-as-outerwear was a key trend, Agent Provocateur has seen a halo effect on its business. The brand has seen a “significant” uptick in sales on corsetry over the last six months. And during Paris Fashion Week, the label’s Paris store sold out of its Gabby bodysuits “in record time”, Shotton told Vogue Business shortly after.
Celebrities from Jenna Ortega to Anitta have been spotted in recent months, attending events in Agent Provocateur pieces as eveningwear. In response, the brand’s ‘Forever’ range of carryover styles including the Lorna bra, often spotted under blazers, are bestsellers. “The Forever range (lines and styles including — but not limited to — Lorna, Mercy and Molly) continues to excel, reflecting the growing popularity of lingerie-as-outerwear,” Banks says.
You can’t really plan for the trend cycle, especially over the last year when it reached breakneck speed. But sometimes the trend cycle moves towards what you do, and you can react, instead of trying to chase it. “It feels like a natural moment where Agent Provocateur and what Sarah and the team do fits very well into the current fashion moment, with the underwear-as-outerwear trend,” says Banks. “So we are able to lean into it.”
Now, to capitalise on growing demand, Shotton and Banks are preparing for the next phase of the business, with new categories and new pricing structures to serve new and existing consumers of all ages, without losing their flavour. Over the past year, Agent Provocateur has been developing a more robust ready-to-wear offering, beyond a few “icon” carryover pieces like classic corsets, to serve the growing ready-to-wear customer who wants to show a little skin and build a look around one of its cult pieces. “You’ll see a lot more ready-to-wear products from us this year, that will stretch our product [pricing] further upwards, which is strategically where we want to go,” Banks says.
This includes more dresses (with plenty of cutouts, lace and mesh) or jackets, skirts and trousers, retailing from around £695 to £1,495 a piece. Already, bestsellers include sexy suiting and body-contouring clothes, like a corset trouser or a high-waisted corset skirt (“every time that [skirt] drops it’s gone,” adds Shotton). Nineties-style lace slip dresses also work well, as Shotton points to the younger customer who throws it on with a cashmere sweater and an Adidas Gazelle. “They want to look sexy, but they want a bit more bang for their buck, so they make it wearable everyday, too.”
To attract this youthful shopper, Shotton is keen to keep some pieces more accessible (still for a cool £120). “We sell a lot of what we call ‘entry pieces’, so we try to add some premium features, so that the entry-level customer truly falls in love with the brand and can grow with it. As soon as women wear Agent Provocateur, it kind of transforms them. They keep coming back.”
Beyond ready-to-wear, further category extension is a “big pillar” for Agent Provocateur in 2025, including expanding its swimwear range. “We will deliberately create, you know, more content and assets around swimwear,” Banks says. “That allows us as well to bring in an entry, more premium-priced product. The brand also launched costume jewellery late last year, designed to complement the lingerie, retailing from £85 to £350. “It’s testing and learning, but what’s interesting is that already, we’re seeing some of the pieces are selling very well and very quickly.” They decided to opt for costume jewellery to start with, rather than fine, to take aim at the younger customer.
Again, a key fashion trend from last year, hosiery is on the up for Agent Provocateur, too. The brand still makes its most intricate stockings on traditional 1940s machines, but has also made some updates, including logo tights and more durable materials such as lycra. “We’ve grown the hosiery to make some more everyday options, because God a nylon stocking, they’re great, but after a full day you can end up like Nora Batty with wrinkles around your ankles,” Shotton laughs.
Developing and communicating newness
New product development isn’t easy, in new or existing categories. Agent Provocateur products come in 42 sizes and many pieces have over 30 components. “The attention to detail and precision on timing required in those product streams is extraordinary,” Banks says. “We can’t lose a week, so the product team works incredibly hard.”
Unlike in previous leadership structures, Shotton has the ultimate say on product today. And creatively and business-wise, her and Banks had to manage the change across the company when they joined forces in 2022. “Some people left because they didn’t want to get behind the vision,” says Banks.
There’s also the challenge of marketing lingerie, the duo adds. “Although we’ve got this underwear-as-outerwear foundation ‘thing’ happening at the moment, generally, you don’t know if someone’s wearing Agent Provocateur in the street,” Banks says. “That’s part of the beauty of it. It’s also part of the challenge. It’s not a bag with a logo or a red-soled shoe.”
To underline their new ready-to-wear vision, Agent Provocateur is working with key talents who represent confidence and strength, Shotton says. Last September, Paris Hilton starred in a brand campaign. “I noticed that she was texting every time we were dropping new collections on the AP Instagram,” Shotton says. “She was like, ‘I love this.’ So I contacted her and we had a call. And she agreed to do the campaign.” The images have hundreds of thousands of likes on Hilton and the brand’s Instagram.
Soon after, the label tapped 46-year-old British talent Liberty Ross to model its new ready-to-wear collection, in Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace in Los Angeles. Released last Autumn, the images — sexy and severe — speak to Ross’s power and maturity as not just a model, but as a business owner. “That shoot with Liberty transitioned the company and kind of elevated how we photograph everything,” Shotton says. “But there is an authenticity to it.” Across campaigns, Shotton’s modus operandi is to shoot exclusively with existing fans of the brand. “We don’t have massive budgets. So we want to work with people who love the brand. They’re also all of a certain age, they all have children, they’re sexually confident and they have strong characters.”
Outside of campaigns, Shotton has made lingerie for Charli XCX, Madonna and Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour. “It’s so amazing actually working on a product that so many amazing women get a kick out of,” she says. “When we get the list of the women that are going in and buying it and feeling confident, that is just incredible.”
Looking ahead, the brand is keen to bolster its recent growth with further powerful campaigns across its new categories, from jewellery to swim, and existing hero lingerie. So that even as trends wane and people start covering their underwear once more, they’ll still invest in “AP” for underneath.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
Correction: This story was updated to reflect Mike Ashley is the owner of Frasers Group, rather than chief executive as previously stated.
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