From small-town Germany to Grammy-winning global pop star, Kim Petras has spent years perfecting the art of transformation. But with Detour, shaped by collaborators like Porches and Frost Children and released independently, she’s trading polished pop formulas for something more personal. 

Growing up in rural Germany listening to the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Gwen Stefani, Kim Petras always understood that pop is as much about image as it is about everything else, and she’s spent the last decade refining this 360-degree approach. With her upcoming album Detour, that precisely built world for the first time resembles a self-portrait. “I’m trying to be the truest version of myself,” the artist shares over a call.

By the time she emerged publicly in 2017, Petras was already working with a clear sense of direction. What followed was a steady escalation: cult fanbases, virality, and eventually full-scale global recognition, most notoriously with Sam Smith on “Unholy,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to win the GRAMMY for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. From there, her output quickly rose: Clarity, Slut Pop, her studio album Feed The Beast, Slut Pop Miami, etc.

But the music industry is a system she has constantly had to fight to carve out space within. Detour has shown a prolonged and complicated rollout, including label tensions that delayed the project’s release and pushed Petras to release music independently under her own label imprint, BunHead Records. Now operating with autonomy, she has been steadily releasing singles that feel like both experiments and declarations of independence. “Need for Speed” and “Jeep” have arrived as part of a larger narrative shaped by a tight-knit circle of collaborators, including Frost Children, Porches and Nightfeelings.

If earlier eras of Petras’ career were defined by a maximalist pop direction, Detour feels intentionally more dynamic and built on reinvention and collaboration. “I feel like I’ve become a band with the people I’ve worked with on this album.” These artists have become central to her current sound, but also to the visual world surrounding it, where fashion, video and music go hand in hand.

One of Petras’ most distinctive creative tools has always been fashion. Whether attending the Met Gala or sitting front row at Balenciaga, style is central to her identity, and can even be the starting point for a record itself. “When I make a song, what I’m wearing decides what kind of song I’m going to write,” she says. “Dressing the part has always helped me.”

That sensibility has become particularly visible across her recent visuals. The video for “Jeep”, directed by Leonie Milleraichholz, transforms Americana into something closer to a memory filtered through European adolescence, a Tumblr-era fantasy of the United States assembled from fragments of pop culture and digital nostalgia, while in “Need for Speed”, she did an exercise on self-styling.

And yet, beneath the references, collaborators and visuals, Detour, she says, is more vulnerable than previous projects. Petras has described it as a record she has “fought for so hard”, a phrase that hints at the friction behind its creation and the process of dropping out of a label, but also at its personal significance. In contrast to earlier records shaped by external expectations or tightly controlled pop frameworks, with this era, the artist reclaims her sound, image, and authorship.

For Petras, Detour is “the start of everything”, and ahead of its release, she sits with Wonderland to talk Americana, archival fashion, creative control and this new era.

Listen to the album…

Read the interview…

Why do you think fashion is so important for you as an artist and such a big part of your identity?

It goes hand in hand with music. When I make a song, what I’m wearing decides what kind of song I’m going to write. I think dressing the part has always helped me. I am in love with storytelling and I think fashion helps me tell a story better. If something is torn at the seams, burnt, I don’t know…vintage from a specific collection. There’s so much to tell with it. I have always loved transformation and the power it gives you to reinvent, and a new look being able to make you almost into a new person or new artist. 

Where do you go shopping?

I go to vintage stores when I’m traveling, a lot of it is vintage. I shop online a lot. A lot of it is just kind of like vintage and The RealReal and Vestiaire collective. And I just kind of go by my favorite collections and kind of shows over the years to find gems.

In LA, there are a couple of cool spots. I really like this place called Shop Nine Two Five, which is kind of a curated vintage store in downtown LA. I love going there. I love finding different things, so mostly I go to vintage stores. Honestly, I rarely buy anything new.

What’s the holy grail in your closet? 

I have this amazing Louis Vuitton designed by Marc Jacobs, 2009 dress that I’m obsessed with that I’ve always wanted to find. And I’m just really happy I found it and I got it. I have a couple of shoes and a couple tweed pieces from Karl Lagerfeld Chanel, which I love.

I love Galliano for Dior. So I have a Gaucho bag. The 2000s have a special place in my heart just because I grew up during that time. And then, all the things I’ve gotten over the years from going to Balenciaga shows and the new Gucci stuff I’m obsessed with. So I’m really lucky I like it too.

Who is your favourite designer or brand at the moment? What brands are you looking for?

I’ve been really trying to find clothes by Hussain Chalayan. It’s kind of like a 2000s staple and they’re kind of hard to find. I’ve been really in love with finding Christian Lacroix things from like the 90s. And yeah, I’m into John Franco Fair and Anthony Gucci. I love Demna and I love his vision and just kind of seeing that [debut] show was so amazing. I think the videos didn’t really do it justice because it just felt crazy and really rock and roll, I still think about that.

So, are you pro-Demna at Gucci?

I’m friends with Loic, his boyfriend, and they’ve just been so kind to me over the years. But I think from a design standpoint, I think it just really reminds me of a lot of the clothes I grew up around, like the sweatpants, the bomber jackets, and the small town European vibe. I think there’s always a little level of playing with bad taste in Demna’s work, and I feel like I do the same thing in pop music. Good taste doesn’t exist without throwing something in bad taste in there. Especially in pop, the good parts of pop songs, the stuff everyone can scream at a bar, is not necessarily the good taste stuff. I really admire his design philosophy and creativity and his pushing forward. 

I know you work a lot with Angel and Lulu from the frost children. How do you think they’ve influenced your style and your fashion sense, if they have at all?

Lots, I think they just have such a distinct style. I don’t know, I’ve always kind of loved the fashion of Final Fantasy and Square Enix games. And they look like they walked out of Final Fantasy games. It’s just so cool. They’re constantly thrifting and accessorising. They’ve got it figured out. I need to step it up in the studio. They’re just instantly recognisable. The first few times we worked together, we discovered that I had a song called Polo, and they had a song called Ralph Lauren, and we were all wearing polos and we were accessorising with fake fur and belts and bangles. It just made a lot of sense,  we met at the perfect time.

How did you find out about The Frost Children? How did you meet?
I DMed them. They made a remix of a song called “American Terrorist” and it was on repeat for me. They were down to work and we met up the next time they were in town and we hit it off right away and wrote Freak It pretty fast. Ever since then we’ve been trying to see each other all over the world. I’m so excited for them. I think Frost Children are the future of pop, they’re so talented and their album Sister is such a good album. I love that entire album so much. Hasn’t aged a day.

What’s on your moodboard currently?

I’ve always loved in movies and TV shows when you see your characters’ clothes and you can see like, oh, this is what they wore in this episode, I love Marissa Cooper from the OC series. I love the LA Girl 2000s style. I’m constantly trying to build this pop star closet of things that are a staple to me and build the vocabulary of my clothes. My mood board is just my music and the things I find along the way that I put with it. But yeah, maybe like, hmm.

I want to talk about “Jeep”. I love the song and the music video. How did you meet Leonie [Milleraichholz] and what made you choose her to direct your video?

I met Leonie at my first Balenciaga show. She’s really tight with the Balenciaga team and we just kind of started talking. She’s Austrian, I’m German. We had a lot in common and just hit it off creatively right away. She has such an amazing brain, originally we were going to do Freak It and then that didn’t pan out and then I sent her Jeep and she just fell in love with it and made it happen on this trip in Paris. The song is very much about this European idea of what an American love story is. The song was really inspired by a misunderstanding with a guy where I called his truck a Jeep, it wasn’t a Jeep. But in my town in Germany, we call every truck a Jeep, he kind of got offended.

I love that we pulled like Marc Jacobs’ ballet flats, like 2011 core, the polo, lots of purple. For some reason, like bright purple felt really like my teen years obsession with that and we just got like so many like easter eggs in that video of just like european upbringing.

Do you have a favourite look from the “Jeep” music video?

The August Barron dress that has the green sports top and then a tutu attached to it. I’m really obsessed with August Barron and I’m really excited to see the future of what they’re doing. I just love that dress so much. I felt like a little princess. And then probably the outfit with the Litas, the spike Jeffrey Campbell Litas. That was cool. Throwback. But lots of good outfits in that one. I love every look.

Why do you think this Americana aesthetic and the Tumblr inspired aesthetic is so trendy now and nostalgic for people?

It feels like growing up to me, it feels very coming of age, which is so magical. I just think it was kind of a different, now simpler seeming time. It just feels correct currently, for my music too, I just try to really accompany the music with what I think will fit the music best and paint a full picture. 

There’s always been an element of Tumblr-ism in pop music videos, I don’t think it ever really fully went away. GIFs and kind of collages of moments. The “We Found Love” by Rihanna music video, iconic video, is so Tumblr. Or Lana Del Rey, Ride. Iconic Pop music videos and Tumblr are holding hands. So yeah, it’s endlessly inspiring.

What was the process like creatively?

I wrote the song with Aaron [Porches], the male lead in the video, so it was really important to me that it’s us two for the storytelling of the song. I wanted it to feel romantic and I wanted it to feel sad to a certain point. I love the idea of two hours outside of France, bumfuck little town road. It was really important to me that there were no actual Jeeps in it, so that it really makes sense. 

Was porches always meant to be in the video?

Yeah, we wrote the song together during the LA fires. I really feel like I’ve become a band with the people I’ve worked with on this album, like The Frost Children, Margot, Night Feelings and Porches. So I’m trying to have them in as many things as possible. He’s an artist I really admire, and he’s got the perfect look for this type of song. So it just felt like there was no other option than to have him in the video.

And how would you define what you’re trying to do? So when you say she gets what I’m trying to do, what is it you’re trying to do with this era?

I think it’s hard to put words to it because I’m just trying to find myself, and connection, and to be loved is to be known. I’m trying to be the truest version of myself and emphasise my art with my clothing. So just a real wardrobe, real things I wear, real things I have collected and feel passionate about and understand and know the references of and appreciate the designers of. Whatever I feel comfortable in, whatever feels right in the moment. Mostly I’m trying to connect with people through fashion and tell the story to a further extent than I could with just music. There is always a bit of outsider European culture. There’s always something a little off, I would say. And it’s never just hot or just pretty, I don’t find that interesting. If a shoe is scuffed or a jacket has a stain or something has a cigarette hole or a thread poking out, I like that stuff.

There’s 9 looks in the “Need for Speed” music video. How did you approach building so many looks and what was the process like?

That music video is so chaotic and was such a fun piece of work. I had a really clear vision of the styling I was going for, the symbolisation of this bimbo character I’m portrayed as at the beginning, and classic pop star tropes and colours. I wanted to tell the story of what my career has felt like through fashion and art without saying anything about it. From the super corseted, restricted feeling of the outfits, the dazzled Dsquared dress going down the stairs, and the shoes from my personal collection, everything is from my actual closet and me and my friends are throwing it all together, nearly no stylist. It was a wild ride but I’m proud of myself for pushing myself like that.

How do you think LA influences you when it comes to the creative process and the way you dress? Or do you think your European upbringing plays a more important part on this album?

I don’t want to box myself into forever being the same thing. This album is very much I’m in control, trusting myself, and letting you into who I am. Other albums are more like building a character in a different world. I’ll always have my specific view because of who I am and where I’m from, and how my family dresses. But I always want to be able to change. This era is very ‘European girl explaining the American dream’ and what it really feels like, revealing myself a lot. I love transforming and building new characters and worlds.

Do you think honesty right now is what’s drawing people in? I feel like a lot of female pop stars are being more open than ever. Is honesty a big thing in pop right now or has it always been this way?

I don’t know. I just know that at this moment, it felt natural and right to abandon the character and be more spontaneous and real, pulling back the curtain, because I’ve been so many things. I wanted to explain myself through the art instead of interviews or essays. Music and storytelling that’s good is always about trying to connect with people. I think part of it is honesty, but I also support characters and scenarios you make up being as real as you are. If I dream up a character, it’s real because I created it. I move between honesty and character. Blunt honesty can lose the art if you don’t finesse it or glamorise it. Saying it exactly how it is can feel boring. It’s a push and pull between character and honesty. I’m just grateful I get to do this and people like the music I’m putting out. I’m just doing what feels right.

What are you excited about next?
Ooh, Detour, the album I’m so in love with and have fought for so hard, is finally coming out. That’s my main event and the start of a completely new chapter for me. Sometimes it feels like the album coming out is the end, but this feels like the start of everything. I’m so excited for my album and the music I’m working on.

Words – Moira González