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Petra Collins has established herself as a force to be reckoned with in arts and entertainment. Her unique visual flair and artistic adaptation of the female gaze have led to many successful collaborations with brands and personalities like Gucci, Vogue, Selena Gomez, and Olivia Rodrigo. She is also known for inspiring the visuals of Euphoria.
Excerpts Petra Collins's interview with Punkt revealed that she had been asked to direct the series inspired by her photographs. However, she was dropped by the studio for being too young at the time. She revealed that she cried after finding out via a billboard that her aesthetic was stolen from her to create Sam Levinson's Euphoria.
Petra Collins and her impact on pop culture and art
Noted by Business of Fashion as one among the many "artists leading a new wave of female gaze-led photography," Petra Collins has already established herself as an authentic powerhouse in an industry desperately in need of fresh originality. It was not always easygoing for the daughter of a Canadian father and a refugee Hungarian mother, raised in North York in Toronto.
Petra Collins' family was struggling financially, she had severe dyslexia, and her mother had bipolar disorder. She wanted to become a dancer, but her dream was devastatingly cut short at fifteen when her knees got injured due to an accident and had to be operated on. Adding to her woes, she even flunked out of her senior year of high school.
However, this led to her foray into photography, as she began taking melancholic pictures of her sister and her friends in high school. These pictures were her take on adolescence and a woman's teenage years.
This small personal project was only a shadow of what was to come. Petra Collins eventually met and worked with filmmaker Richard Kern, joined and dropped out of OCAD for no longer being able to self-fund it, moved to New York with $500 and a suitcase, and worked as the protege of Ryan McGinley.
Now, the 30-year-old is unstoppable. Collins works on projects and does photoshoots with brands and publications like Gucci, Adidas, Italian Vogue, US Vogue, Teen Vogue, and The New York Times.
Her work in the music industry has also made her one of the field's most in-demand music video directors. She has created music videos for Selena Gomez, Lil' Yachty, Cardi B, and Olivia Rodrigo. Most recently, her music video for Rodrigo's Vampire was nominated for video of the year at the 2023 MTV VMAs.
A lot of what makes an artist's work awe-inspiring is its authenticity in aesthetics, and Collins' work can be considered generational in that regard. Whether it be the intimacy within strange yet familiar dreamy melancholic sexuality or a hazy foray into parts of feminity ostracized by society, Petra's impact as a tour de force, Post-Feminst artist that captured the female-gaze at its most surreal and its most vulnerable cannot be understated.
Besides being a model, photographer, and director, Collins has also published three books: Discharge, Babe, and Fairy Tales, which she wrote along with Alexa Demie. She is also directing Spiral, an upcoming psychological thriller movie, starring Selena Gomez, featuring Drake as an executive producer.
"That series was an exorcism to me": Petra Collins
Petra Collins' interview with Punkt sent shockwaves down the spines of Euphoria fans when she revealed the heartbreaking story behind the creation of the series and the loss of her authentic aesthetic.
"That series was an exorcism to me. I had to change my style because of Euphoria."
She further stated:
"Lots of people started to take photos in that style and I haven’t felt any more as mine and I felt disconnected from that."
However, apart from these statements, another excerpt from the interview, which has disappeared from the official site, surfaced online as screenshots. The screenshots showcased a more harrowing and detailed explanation of the creation of Euphoria and Collins' involvement in it. The artist revealed:
"The reason I moved to Los Angeles was because (sic) Sam Levinson, who directed the show."
According to Petra Collins, Levinson reached out to her agent and revealed that he wrote a show based on Collins' photographs. Levinson also asked Petra to direct the show, and she moved to LA to work on the show. For five months, she created the world and did the casting, but in the end, HBO said that they would not hire her as she was too young.
She thought that HBO might do another version of the show instead of using her ideas, so she was fine, but that was not the case.
"A year later I walked out of my apartment, and see this billboard and it's exactly what I am, as a copy of my work.
Petra Collins stated that she was shocked and started crying as it was the first time such a thing had happened to her on such a large scale. The aesthetic that she built all her life now had to be changed.
"It enters the mainstream and it's been taken away from me."
She concluded that the worst part of the experience was when people were unknowingly said that the show looked like her photographs.
