I'm Sorry
Past a buffet of vegetarian lunches and Japanese candy, beyond makeup mirrors fogged with hairspray, through shelves stacked with props (dozens of vintage 1980s lamps, a copy of Valley of the Dolls, a bag of hot Cheetos) and lined with racks of pastel or neon-colored clothing, Petra Collins kneels before a custom-built wooden stage decorated with miniature furniture.
This isn’t quite the dollhouse set of a Laurie Simmons shoot or one of Tim Walker’s Alice and Wonderland homages. Two models in Bratz doll makeup and wigs have to hunch to enter the room, but only slightly, and the décor here is from a familiarly aspiration-less apartment. The clothing, too, is at once recognizable and slightly off: lacy lingerie in toxic hues, satin robes printed with anime characters, shrunken t-shirts that read, “I’m Sorry.”
The models crawl along the carpeted floor, one bound Shibari style in neon green ropes. One assistant points a Venetian-blind-obscured spotlight into the room as another sprays canned air through the tiny doorway, creating a slight fog. Someone else directs a leaf blower at white curtains, which flutter against tiny window frames. Petra focuses a mini spotlight on one model’s face as the other model takes selfies with the world’s smallest iPhone on a child-scale leopard print bed. A tissue box-sized TV glows with a fuzzy image on a too-small dresser.
This is the photoshoot for Petra’s first ever clothing collection, designed in collaboration with SSENSE, and named after the phrase she “says the most.” Sprinkled with references to the embarrassing memories, horror movies, and sexual fetishes that often inspire her photography, it’s at once extremely personal and humorously detached; raunchy and childish.
Having, as a teen, assisted Richard Kern and modeled for Ryan McGinley, Petra (born in 1992) came of age in the school of skewed sexuality as seen by realist photography. Her own work explores the many facets of growing up behind and in front of an ever-watching lens—its realism incorporates the surreal quality of a wavering subjectivity, due to online identities. Dysmorphia and distortion, but also the grating realities of physical life, all show up in her photoshoots.
Sometimes the social commentary is idyllic, like in depictions of a digital screen’s warm aura. Other times it’s macabre, as in a short film starring Selena Gomez, “A Love Story,” which shows the pop star peeling rubber appendages from her own skin. Petra’s first serious self-portraiture—her book, Miért vagy te, ha lehetsz én is? (in English: “Why be you, when you can be me?”)—used molds of her own and not her own body parts to circle the topic of drawing a line between a true and imagined self. When I meet her, she is gearing up to do some more self portraits for this shoot, having gained some courage since the book, which came out in 2019.
As someone who was once uncomfortable in front of a camera, it’s still a big deal for Petra to get her photo taken, even if many other image makers now consider her a muse (see her walking a Gucci runway, guest-starring in Jill Soloway’s Transparent, or being included in countless “It Girl” stories). The exposure has both complicated and simplified the issues Petra has with her own self-image. She’s getting better at acceptance of this strange space she inhabits between respected artist and reluctant model, she tells me, but still suffers from spells of paralyzing self-doubt. (Her in-demand status doesn’t lend her a lot of downtime to process it all, either. Today, she’s “running on about four hours of sleep,” having just flown back from a Vogue Korea cover shoot, and in two days, she’ll be in Milan ahead of fashion week.)
“I’m gonna use these,” says Petra, scrolling through the tiny iPhone’s photos. The model who took them, Severine, who Petra has been photographing since she was fourteen, laughs, still dancing between shots. She changes from a sequined mini skirt and sheer black tights to a pair of satin underwear printed with symbols representative of Petra’s childhood: a cockroach, a stuffed dog, candy wrappers, pimple cream. These symbols are sketched by Korean artist and graphic designer Migo, who elsewhere in the collection renders Petra as a sexy Y2K-styled superhero who wears a nightgown, sneakers, and knotted rope around her wrists.
Petra takes out her own phone to show me a reference image, but can’t seem to find it. “You can tell I’m a psycho by how many screenshots I send of texts,” she laughs, scrolling through the images in a conversation with her friend, the writer Melissa Broder. Melissa’s essay collections use the same self-aware, seductive, yet self-deprecating language as Petra’s “I’m Sorry” world, with titles like So Sad Today and Last Sext. It’s perhaps a go-to meme for a particular generation: the apology that precedes an intoxicating display of vulnerability.
But Petra’s controlled messes—images in which exhibitionism is celebrated and shame inducing, an addiction that requires increasing amounts of riskiness to be satisfied—both inform and respond to the aesthetic of this generation. For the teen from Toronto, photos garnering high numbers on Instagram became solo gallery shows, then fashion magazine covers, then Nordstrom and Adidas ads and music videos for millennial mouthpieces like Selena Gomez, Lil Yachty, and Cardi B.
Severine’s white t-shirt (embossed with “I’m Sorry” in a 1970s porno font) appears to have had coffee spilled down the front. It’s “pre-stained,” Petra explains—“so you’re not afraid to get it dirty.” Severine pulls at the shirt as she gyrates on the ground, strappy heels locking together and then splaying apart. “I’m sorry,” she jokes, which gives Petra an idea. Holding the mini-phone to her ear, Severine theatrically whines, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Because I’m sorry. I already said I’m sorry,” while Petra records a video. (When it’s over, the crew applauds and Severine says, “That’s literally what I sound like,” to laughter.)
As the set is dismantled and a new scene is built—a full-size coffin hovering over a swirly blue rug, a pool of tears flooding a giant eye made of dyed roses—Petra sits for hair and makeup and discusses the inspirations behind this project, the reason she’s taken a long hiatus from photography until now, and her upcoming feature film about social media addiction starring the once most-followed girl on Instagram, her close friend Selena.