Joseph Corr

Vocation

Notable

Family

British businessman, who co-founded Agent Provocateur in 1994, and social activist. Corré is the son of British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood and fashion and music business maverick – as one time manager of the Sex Pistols – Malcolm McLaren. Corré met Serena Rees, now his ex-wife and former business partner, in 1992 at a night club. The couple has one child, a daughter. They divorced in 2007. Agent Provocateur was established in 1994 after Rees grew tired of seeing drab undergarments, and the couple opened a shop in which they originally sold other designers' pieces. Corré had no desire to design lingerie but, after not finding enough of the type they wished to sell, decided to create their own lingerie line. Since then, the company has expanded to 30 stores in 14 countries. Following Corré and Rees' divorce, Agent Provocateur was purchased by the private equity house 3i for £60m. In June 2007, Corré was awarded the MBE for his services to the fashion industry in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. He rejected the honour in protest of outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair's actions regarding Iraq. On 26 November 2016, in London, on the 40th anniversary of the release of the Sex Pistol's debut single "Anarchy in the UK," Corré burned millions of pounds of punk memorabilia as a public protest against punk's appropriation by the mainstream. He was accompanied by Westwood during the protest. Link to Wikipedia biography