Skippy Peanut Butter, Jeffrey Campbell Litas, colourful cigarettes, Marc Jacobs mouse flats, tinsel hair, Brandy Melville-style layering, pastel sunsets, festival wristbands, and Froot Loops in those bright, hyper-American e-colours – these are just some of the references that make up Kim Petras’ latest music video for new single “Jeep”, released today ahead of her upcoming album Detour.
Directed by Leonie Miller-Aichholz, the video is framed through the lens of an “Americana Tumblr fantasy”, bringing to life a place that doesn’t really exist so much as visualise how a generation of European kids pieced together their idea of the United States through over-filtered images, cut-and-paste moodboards, and a lot of late-night scrolling.
The idea for the video came from a conversation Miller-Aichholz had with Petras. “Kim told me a story about going on a date with an American guy, and getting in his truck and saying ‘nice Jeep’, and him getting kind of offended that she got his truck’s brand wrong,” she explains. “That kind of sparked the idea of how Europeans have certain ideas about America that are probably far from reality, built from what we see online, and how a lot gets lost in translation. Then you end up with some sort of hybrid world that isn’t American and isn’t European – it’s a mix of both with a lot of internet sprinkled on top.”
Shot between rural France and a deliberately unglamorous Paris apartment, the video follows Petras and a love interest as they play out the clichés of this VSCO-filtered world. “I wanted to visualise the idea of young people being stuck in random towns, accessing the American Tumblr fantasy online and interpreting it in their own way,” explains Miller-Aichholz.
Below, we caught up with the director to talk about bringing this internet-born fantasy to life, alongside exclusive Polaroids from the set.
Kim Petras – Jeep BTS
Gallery / 12 images
Where was the video shot, and what led you to choose these specific locations?
Leonie Miller-Aichholz: Literally in the middle of nowhere in France. The funny thing about Paris is that everything is so concentrated. As soon as you drive an hour west, you end up in what I call Potato Europe: landscapes that could technically look like anywhere in France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia or Poland. The apartment location in the city was crucial too, to avoid the stereotypical, luxurious Paris aesthetic – somehow it all needed to kind of look like America.
Why do you think this aesthetic was so widely idolised?
Leonie Miller-Aichholz: The peak Tumblr era allowed for such dreaming. We were essentially vision-boarding constantly. There’s not much dreaming happening online today. We know too much, see too much and most interactions are monetised.
It’s easy to romanticise things of the past, but at the same time it really was exciting, and slightly more innocent. We felt like we were discovering something bigger. It’s an experience we shared as a generation, and now share the nostalgia for it. We probably just miss feeling together.
Do you have a favourite shot from the project?
Leonie Miller-Aichholz: Probably the balcony scenes where Kim is wearing the August Barron princess dress with the pink dip dye hair. Aaron lurking in the background smoking cigarettes. This felt like the Tumblr fantasy coming alive in real time, and I always love a princess dress moment.
How did the idea come about?
Leonie Miller-Aichholz: Kim told me a story about going on a date with an American guy, and getting in his truck and saying ‘nice jeep’, and him getting kind of offended that she got his truck’s brand wrong. In Germany, you call any truck Jeep, just like how Americans say Kleenex for tissues. That kind of sparked the idea of how Europeans have certain ideas about America that are probably far from reality, built from what we see online and how a lot gets lost in translation. Then you end up with some sort of hybrid world that isn’t American and isn’t European – it’s a mix of both with a lot of internet sprinkled on top.
Are there any other details you think people might have missed?
Leonie Miller-Aichholz: I hope people notice the purple Maybelline mascara. I really can’t say why, but that was an it-piece to own at the time. I don’t even know if Americans had this too? But over here we loved her.
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