Original text by Stephen Short
Photography by Nick Knight
Produced by Gainsburg & Whiting · Styling Katy England · Hair Sam McKnight
Make-up Val Garland · Photography assistants Ruth Hogben, Andy Vowles
AGENT PROVOCATEUR CO-FOUNDER Joseph Corre has known Kate Moss since the two were in their teens. “The first-ever time I met her was when we went to Philip Salon’s Mud Club in London. When you were a teenager and you couldn’t get into other clubs, he’d always let you in when you were under age. At that time Kate was still at school in Croydon. I do remember that she was good fun.”
Fast-forward to now. Corre, son of designer Vivienne Westwood and impresario Malcolm McLaren, says the current shoot with Moss, by Nick Knight, is more than just a bridal/anti-bridal campaign. “I felt that the media and public have taken quite a moralistic approach to Kate and her personal life, and I felt it was appropriate to throw that back and show Kate taking back control of the day in a very feminine and powerful way. Hence the line, ‘Let them eat Kate.’”.
He says society shouldn’t foist the role-model label on celebrities. “I think there’s a misconception that Kate’s a role model. She’s not, and she didn’t ask to be. She’s a clothes model. The public shouldn’t hold her up as a role model. She’s just extremely glamorous and charming and a really lovely girl. Kate has only ever tried to do what she does really well and has achieved that and maintained that at the level she has. And so stylishly and with such grace.”
Corre says working with Moss (she’s also featured in previous Provocateur campaigns) is different from working with most other models – and faster. “She’s very quick because she manages to do hundreds of slight permutations of a look, and she’s very enigmatic. She doesn’t do any crazy jumping action shots. Kate really does just Kate. When you shoot her it’s really her you’re getting, and she does her so extremely well. This campaign is not meant to be run-of-the-mill. It’s punchy and powerful and not for the faint-hearted, and her enthusiasm for it shows a certain level of intelligence and a bit of mischief, which I think is a very sexy quality.”
Meanwhile, Agent Provocateur is on a roll in Asia and the Middle East. “We’re working with our partner Lane Crawford in Hong Kong in the Asian region and they are expanding in China and so might we be. We’re starting to look more seriously at markets like Singapore, Korea, Malaysia. For the Middle East, we have two stores [Dubai, Qatar] and have plans for four in the pipeline. We find it easier to open stores in the Middle East than some parts of the US. You’re fed this idea you can do anything you want in the US, but that’s not the reality. Strangely, the culture in the Middle East is more like, these are the things you can do and these are the things you can’t; as long as you stay within those parameters you can do whatever you want. They want fleshy, sexy things and we stopped trying to be so private in that market.”
To see more of the scrumptious collection, visit Agent Provocateur’s store-in-store at Lane Crawford ifc mall, which sells the brand exclusively in Hong Kong, or, visit the AP website, soon to have a film featuring the making of the campaign with Moss and a link to Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio where the shoot was done. “We wanted people to have that experience and get deeper into the whole thing,” says Corre.■
