Joy Crookes Offers a Bold Take on Confidence and Beauty in 'Carmen' Video

On her latest single, 'Carmen,' Joy Crookes outlines her emotional battle with confidence. In the official video, director Alice Fassi tackles the vicious cycle of chasing beauty standards with a refreshing surreal playfulness and irony.

Lyrically, 'Carmen' explores themes of mental health and the strength found in supportive female friendships - a narrative that finds a compelling visual counterpart in the music video, rich with emotional but witty symbolic references, twisted with burlesque humour.

Joy Crookes said, "It’s for the women that I really admire and care about who have been diminished because of the way they look or the way their brains work or the fact that they have suffered from mental health issues and the fact that they actually have an opinion on something and aren't just designed for men!"

Alice Fassi said, "When I listened to the track, I felt I knew this 'Carmen'. Carmen actually is the girl we’ve all known at some point: effortlessly perfect, admired to the point of obsession, and quietly envied for having everything we ever wanted - all without lifting a finger. Sometimes it takes almost nothing: a casual comparison, a sprinkle of envy dressed up as admiration, and suddenly we’re bowing down to someone who only exists in our head. Not the real person, of course, but a high-gloss, limited-edition fantasy - prettier, cooler, simply better. And from there, it’s a slippery slope straight into obsession.

"For our music video, the scene of Carmen falling down the stairs is the perfect embodiment of this feeling. Even in her most dramatic downfall, she manages to be… perfect. And though she shatters into a thousand pieces, her influence doesn’t - it simply shifts. In this case, it takes hold of Joy, the singer of the song.

"With this video, I wanted to explore that familiar feeling of never quite measuring up - of getting lost in the ridiculous race to become someone else entirely, until envy pushes us into surreal territory. My goal was to capture that intimate emotion with a sense of playfulness, wit, and irony, because beneath the absurdity lies something painfully real. It’s a cheeky dive into the beauty standards we’re fed daily, and the strange cult of superficial adoration."

Alice, a director based between Milan and Paris, impresses with her ability to create visually striking and playful narratives that use absurdity to subvert viewer expectations.

Through inventive staging and surprising visual worlds, she offers unconventional storytelling filled with eccentric characters and offbeat situations that instantly captivate.

See more work from La/Pac here.