Agent Provocateur’s new Madison Avenue outpost is the second store in the past month that Cintra Wilson has deemed more appropriate for mistresses than wives (the first being Dior’s revamped 57th Street flagship). Besides philandering husbands, though, she’s not sure who would shop there: “Who, then (besides sex workers, for whom such dainties are, arguably, a professional expense), buys this tricked-out, candy-apple shellacked hot rod of outlandishly expensive yet adolescently cartoonish love for sale, on Madison Avenue? The women I saw seemed to want nothing more than to throw beige cashmere cardigans over these rococo brassieres. The store uncomfortably exposes people for their exact level of sexual maturity — or not.” [NYT]
