Agent Provocateur has always known how to do more than just design incredibly sensual lingerie — the brand has also mastered the art of selling it through film. Its campaign videos are as bold and arresting as the bras and knickers they promote, but calling them “ads” almost feels reductive. These are fully fledged, sharply shot short films with playful, often risqué storylines and, not infrequently, star-studded casts.
Agent Provocateur with Kylie Minogue (2001)
This is the film that changed everything. With this spot, the world began waiting for each new Agent Provocateur campaign with the same anticipation usually reserved for the launch of a new collection. First, there was the star: Kylie Minogue, who at the time was the official face of the brand. Second, no label had ever dared to create such an overtly provocative, celebrity-led lingerie commercial.
In the short film, Kylie — dressed in black, ultra-sexy Agent Provocateur lingerie — mounts a mechanical bull in an otherwise empty cinema and proceeds to ride it to a pounding rock soundtrack, moving in a way that leaves very little to the imagination. The audience within the ad (and soon after, the real-life audience watching it) needs no further explanation. The spot became one of the earliest viral videos of the internet age and went on to win that year’s Digital Cinema Media public vote as the greatest UK cinema ad.
She Is Lost Control (2007)
With She Is Lost Control, Agent Provocateur marked its tenth anniversary by pushing political and erotic satire to a new level. The action unfolds in a room clearly modeled on the Oval Office. A man bearing an unmistakable resemblance to then–US President George W. Bush receives a late-night visit from a woman. She slowly strips down to Agent Provocateur lingerie, transforming into a full-fledged dominatrix as the dynamic between them flips.
The role of the domina is played by the incomparable Dita Von Teese, while the title nods to She’s Lost Control — the Joy Division track that powers the film’s soundtrack. The “president” is caned and tormented with creative cruelty, and in the final twist, another submissive figure appears: a latex-clad person in a dog mask. When the mask is removed, the face beneath is clearly meant to evoke then–UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, delivering a sharp political punchline.
Love Me Tender Or Else with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (2009)
Released on 14 February, Love Me Tender Or Else is about as far from a standard soft-focus Valentine’s Day commercial as you can get, even though the plot turns entirely on the date. A boyfriend forgets what day it is. His girlfriend — played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley — decides there is only one appropriate response: punishment. Naturally, she does so dressed in a black Agent Provocateur set that makes her vengeance look like an art form.
What follows is a tongue-in-cheek lesson in consequences, staged as a seductive power play rather than a sentimental love story. It is playful, sharp, and unmistakably Agent Provocateur in its blend of glamour and bite.
You can find the continuation of this review in Agent Provocateur Filmography #2 (2011–2017), where the brand’s cinematic universe becomes even more daring, polished, and narratively ambitious.
