Agent Provocateur’s New Video: The Chase
Agent Provocateur, a lingerie high-fashion mogul was founded in 1994 by Joe Corré with help from his parents, the new wave icons Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Agent Provocateur’s daringly erotic stylings were very bold for their time, challenging tastes and morality in much the same way that pierced flesh and shredded T-shirts did when Joe’s father was peddling the Sex Pistols and his mother was turning the world onto goth fashion. Much things have been changed since those times and now we it: Agent Provocateur. Fashionistas all over the world expect their new collection and as soon as it’s released, it’s sold out like hot pies. And sure, new collection means new video. Latest AP‘s video is called The Chase, in which a half-dressed supermodel outruns and outmuscles a young street punk who steals an old lady’s bag. When she finally tackles him, you half-expect her to gob in his face. But this is 2012, not 1976, so instead she simply shouts:
You’re going down!”
Agent Provocateur‘s new video The Chase symbolizes changing world with feminine power becoming more and more obvious.
I think that these three words showcase the whole meaning of the video — we’re experiencing a social paradigm in which timid young hooligans get put in their place and stylish women who can afford expensive lingerie rule. AP’s videos are always richly symbolic and layered with meaning and this one is no different; it shares the kind of obvious female-empowerment message that many lingerie brands have used in the past few years, but it goes deeper than that.
The thief in The Chase leads his pursuer on a sprint through middle-class London, at one point barging into someone’s well-appointed flat and making a mess of things. He’s an intruder, an interloper, a bug in the social order who must be caught and punished.
For what it’s worth, The Chase was produced to help promote AP’s Classics range, in particular the strappy black lace Margot collection (above) that the model is wearing, and their new slogan:
Sexy never takes a day off.”
Do they mean that this isn’t just lingerie, it’s a superhero costume for a new generation?