Chloe Julian, head designer at Agent Provocateur: “We’re going to come under criticism no matter what we do. We’re a lingerie brand.”
Chloe Julian’s 90-year-old grandad is proud of her, but her trade leaves him perplexed.
“That’s just a piece of string and a couple of safety pins!” he likes to say as he leafs through her latest catalogue. He’s not wrong. There’s not much to these products. And some of the pictures are so steamy you’d be glad he’s in good health.
Julian, 34, is head designer at cult lingerie brand Agent Provocateur. Known for its raunchy collections, banned promo videos (including one of Kylie Minogue gyrating on a mechanical bull) and mentions in Fifty Shades of Grey and Bridget Jones’ Diary, Agent Provocateur’s products don’t come cheap. The bras cost over NZ$200, barely-there briefs will set you back over NZ$100 and the “patent leather whip” from the company’s Luxurious Fantasy collection comes in at a cool NZ$620.
Agent Provocateur models pose outside Selfridges department store in London.
“It’s definitely one of the most aspirational lingerie brands in the world,” says Julian.
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Julian with her baby son, Ren.
She’s been in the job four years now, based in the company’s London office, though when interviewed by Sunday she was back in her home town of Hamilton for Christmas, working at her mum’s dining table on the Spring-Summer 2017 collection. Can she divulge any trends or themes? Tassels? Gingham? Missing parts? Nope – “top secret”.
Since starting work in London, Julian’s life reads like an issue of Vogue – awash with supermodels, celebrities and football stars. The US President even makes a cameo. But we’ll get to that in a moment…
Agent Provocateur was founded in 1994 by Joseph Corré (son of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood) and his then-wife Serena Rees. Their stated aim was to “stimulate, enchant and arouse” their customers. They have not failed. As well as the banned Kylie ad, other promo videos have been pulled from YouTube and the company ran into trouble over an advert featuring four near-nude female models kidnapping a woman in her own home.
Although not available in New Zealand, Agent Provocateur now has 100 stores worldwide. Annual sales average over NZ$100 million and a growing global appetite for risqué underwear drove a 63 percent jump in latest profits.
This success can be put down in part to the celebrity heavyweights who front its collections – Helena Christensen, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Paloma Faith and Kylie to name a few – along with the company’s reputation as the naughtiest kid on the undergarment block.
A career highlight for Julian was working on a range with actress Penélope Cruz and her sister Monica. “They are really amazing women.” Not only were the sizzling Cruz siblings involved in the design process, the promotional video also became a family affair, with Penélope writing and directing, a very pregnant Monica starring, and Penélope’s actor husband Javier Bardem making an appearance. Julian was on the set in Madrid – “just another day in the office,” she jokes.
“We are learning so much from these amazing designers,” said Penelope Cruz at the time. “Sometimes pieces that are more sexy are a bit annoying to wear, but that doesn’t happen in this collection. It’s comfortable.”
In March 2014, they shot another Cruz-directed video in the LA desert. “I got told off for asking the models during casting if they had fake boobs,” says Julian. “Apparently that’s discrimination in America.”
So how did she get to be here, advising the world’s hottest celebrities on how best to dress their private parts? “I was actually going to be a doctor. I have a biomedical science degree from Victoria University. But I got to the final year and just changed my mind. It had never even occurred to me that fashion was a job you could do. But I was living in Wellington and people were ‘doing’ fashion and so I changed, against everyone’s advice!”
She’s always made her own clothes. “Since I was young, I’ve sewn. My mum’s really creative; my grandmother’s really creative.”
Her first job out of fashion school (she studied at Massey for two years) was with Bendon. When she moved to London in 2007, her former boss at Bendon (Sue Dunmore, who’s since started her own lingerie company – Rose and Thorne) asked if she’d be lead designer of Bendon’s new Stella McCartney range. That seems a big leap, from mid-level designer in the New Zealand Bendon team to leading the creation of a high-profile product line in the UK. “Sue’s strategy was to chuck you in the deep end and hope that you’d swim.” Julian swam, but it wasn’t always easy. “I was doing it on my own really. I didn’t have the support of the Bendon team, because they were all based in Auckland.”
Julian says Agent Provocateur prides itself on creating lingerie by women, for women.
Dunmore never doubted Julian. “She’s a one-off and I’m just happy we had the opportunity to work together. Her creativity and ability to design to the aesthetic of different brands shows the true flair of a great designer. Designing to a budget and still producing amazing product is a very special and rare commodity – Chloe has it in spades. I am not at all surprised she is where she is now.”
Shortly after the Stella McCartney work, Julian landed a job with David Beckham , developing his HM underwear range. What did this entail? Oh, you know, just going around to Posh and Becks’ house and getting down on her hands and knees in front of David with a measuring tape.
“He’s a really nice guy,” Julian says. “He knew what he wanted but he also knew that I was good at what I did so he was happy to take my advice and direction.”
But wait, it gets better. When Beckham met Barack Obama in 2012, he discovered that not only was the US President a fan of his underwear range, but so was the First Lady. The football star duly sent 50 pairs of briefs to the White House. A source close to the President later told Britain’s Sun newspaper: “Michelle insists he wears them”.
So what’s it like to know that the leader of the free world is walking around in your smalls? “Pretty amazing. I wonder who else is wearing them!”
Julian says Agent Provocateur prides itself on creating lingerie “by women for women”. The design team she leads is all female. “We try everything on, we fit everything. I’m on and off with my clothes so many times a day it’s ridiculous. If we wouldn’t wear it, we don’t put it in the collection. We are basically designing for ourselves.”
Agent Provocateur also claims to “empower” women. But it’s a funny one, especially when you consider that pioneering feminists preferred to burn bras rather than dish out $200 for them. Doesn’t sexy lingerie still objectify women? Doesn’t it foster a superficial and slightly sleazy version of sexuality? The content of the Cruz-directed video reignited the debate. Its male protagonist, wearing x-ray glasses, essentially spends five minutes gawking at scantily clad women as they dance by a pool, shower and lick cake off each other. What happened to by women for women? Julian: “We’re going to come under criticism no matter what we do. We’re a lingerie brand. We’re not scared about being provocative and risky.”
She insists that when women look sexy and beautiful, they’re not necessarily doing it for men. “If you feel hot in lingerie and dance around your living room by yourself, that’s great – it’s because you feel really good. If I’ve spent money on sexy lingerie I’m not just going to wear it for an hour at home with my boyfriend, I’m going to wear it all day.”
That said, her boyfriend must be pretty pleased about her chosen profession? “He loves it,” she smiles. Matt (who grew up in Kerikeri and now works as an architect in London) pipes up behind her: “It’s definitely a very interesting conversation, when people ask me what my partner does.”
I can’t help picturing a kind of Devil Wears Prada dynamic in the Agent Provocateur office. Is there bitching? Infighting? Backstabbing? Cat fights? Not with Julian at the helm. “My job is to make sure that everyone in my team is okay. I’m really not someone who wants an atmosphere where people are feeling competitive or hiding anything, so there’s none of that. We all work together very collaboratively and our team is really great.”
And what about the pressure to be thin – is everyone on the fasting diet? “No!” she laughs. “If anything, I’ve never felt more comfortable with my body than I do working there. There are so many different sizes and everyone looks amazing. I think if you feel confident, then people see you that way. At AP, there is a huge range of sizes and it’s not about being skinny. We’ve sent models home from shoots for being too skinny. We’re all about curves; we’re about the bum and the boobs. Working at somewhere like AP has made me realise that there isn’t a perfect shape, and you have to work with what you’ve got.”
Julian is even more familiar with the concept of accepting your body after giving birth to her first child just over a year ago. “My body is not the same as before. But it doesn’t bother me. I think because you just have so much other stuff to worry about, you can’t think about yourself so much anymore. And they say having a boy keeps you skinny for life because you never get to sit down.”
Julian took seven months off after having baby Ren, but designed from home during that time. He now goes to daycare five days a week in London. “It’s hard being a mum and working full-time and still coming up with new ideas and being creative,” says Julian. “I’ve been back at work since the end of July and I’m still trying to work out the best way.”
She and Matt live in a flat in Hackney, East London. Their lifestyle’s changed a lot. “No going out on Friday nights. And no more Saturday afternoons in the pub.” But motherhood is “awesome. Ren is a really sweet baby… a lot of fun.”
Any plans to return to New Zealand? “No plans. I’m quite specialised in my job, and I love it, but who knows, we’ll see.” Right now she’s focused on where to put 2017′s ribbons and bows.
- Sunday Magazine
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