Agent Provocateur student design competition

  • Leanne Manfredi

The V&A’s 2016 exhibition Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear explored the intimate relationship between underwear and fashion. The design brief focused on underwear into outerwear and fashion designers have consistently been influenced by, and experimented with lingerie in their RTW collections. The bridge between underwear and outerwear has increasingly merged over the years, from structural forms created by boning and padding, to delicate fabrics used to reveal and conceal the figure. If Agent Provocateur were to launch a Ready- to- wear collection, what would it look like? I collaborated with AP on this student brief which went out to universities in England and Wales, students submitted their designs and ten applicants were selected. The winner was Lorna Wright from the University of Northumbria who received a fully paid internship at Agent Provocateur.