The first British athlete to win Olympic gold in the heptathlon, Dame Denise Lewis has swapped sportswear for suspenders and racy underwear as the face of a new campaign for Coco de Mer. It's time, she says, to be bold and brave

Words: Bridget Arsenault

What is it like to have a body that defies gravity? To have the talent and skill to break records and reject the laws of motion? Dame Denise Lewis, the former Olympic heptathlete who won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, knows more than most. Her impressive medal collection also includes two World Championship silvers, a European gold and two Commonwealth golds.Over a gruelling two days, Lewis would run, leap and throw. Her phenomenally ripped physique became a”watch out” to the competition. Greatness at this level isn't a skill. It's a science.

After retiring from athletics in 2005, Lewis became a well-respected sports presenter and president of Commonwealth Games England. To date, she has received an OBE, an MBE and, most recently, a damehood. Last August, she stepped back from the BBC after 15 years to become president of UK Athletics (the latter was considered a conflict of interest with the BBC's strict impartiality rules).”Empowerment means taking control of the labels that people want to place on you,” says Lewis. “It means learning to be confident about who you are and appreciating your own uniqueness.”

Lewis grew up in Wolverhampton, born to a 17-year-old single mother. Discipline and determination came naturally – her teachers reckoned she could be Britain's first female prime minister. Before long, Lewis began excelling as an athlete. Her schedule was gruelling, attending the local comprehensive school and travelling three hours a day to train in Birmingham. Lewis earned her first title at 14, when she was named the English schools long jump champion. Then at 17, a coach suggested she consider the heptathlon. The shoe fit and the year Lewis won bronze in Atlanta, she was the only British woman to take home a medal.

Today, Lewis is standing not on an Olympic podium but in towering patent heels on the sultry second floor of Langan's Brasserie in Mayfair, surrounded by rails of lacy black lingerie. She is fronting the latest Icons campaign for Coco de Mer. “Taking part in my first lingerie shoot in my 50s is a statement that confidence isn't age-dependent and visibility is power,” Lewis says. “It feels more energising than I could have imagined. “It was at a charity dinner this year that Lewis met Lucy Litwack, the chief executive and owner of Coco de Mer, a luxury lingerie and sexual wellness brand with a boutique on Belgravia's Motcomb Street.

Launched over 20 years ago by Sam Roddick, daughter of The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, Coco de Mer is dedicated to “the extraordinary power, potential and importance of female pleasure”. Lewis wanted to know more. Up until that point, underwear, for her, had been distinctly functional. “I'm a product of the 70s,” she says. “It was cotton and very basic. There wasn't that association with underwear that is there to make you feel good.” Now, having worn taut black suspenders for the first time, Lewis has a new outlook.”It's got to be bold. And you've got to be brave,” she says. “I don't know if I would have done this in my 20s and worn an outfit like this. But I think this is so chic.”

Before agreeing to become the face of the campaign, she had a moment of pause. “I had a lot of questions going on in my mind. You know, again I'm a product of the 70s, the 80s, and through to the 90s lingerie was attached to sexualisation of women. Page three models back in the day… so I'm thinking, well, I hope this doesn't get misrepresented.”If she was going to do it, Lewis wanted to do it properly and for the right reasons. “I actually spoke to one of my male friends. I asked him: ‘What do you think this will look like? Does this fit with my brand and how I try to elevate women?' And he was like: ‘Absolutely. Yes!' We looked at the mood board and it was a resounding yes, I'm going to go for this. I'm doing it.”

What did her four children think? “My daughter, I like to feel she will know the value of being a woman and claim that for herself.” As for her three teenage sons, Lewis isn't even sure they've registered the campaign. But that isn't really the point. “This was about what I wanted to do”