myblog: Jay McCarroll QVC

Jay McCarroll QVC, It’s obvious that Jay McCarroll has been working his little hands to the bone since leaving Project Runway. Here, he talks to southphillyreview.com about his plans for the future and his latest endeavor, a documentary titled “11 minutes.”There’s no doubt Jay McCarroll loves fashion. As the winner of Bravo’s “Project Runway” in its inaugural 2005 season, the 33-year-old set the pace for the hit reality show, but is quick to add his fervor for everyday wear far exceeds his liking of haute couture.For more than a decade, he’s bounced from New York to Europe to his hometown of Lehman in upstate Pennsylvania, finally settling last summer in South Philly at Third Street and Washington Avenue.Both this tell-it-like-it-is designer and the neighborhood he so lovingly now calls home have a unique flair — and McCarroll wouldn’t have it any other way.“Philly definitely has its own vibe,” he said, adding a friend once said the city’s look was “scrappy.”“I think that’s a good way [to describe it],” he said, adding in his neighborhood it’s hard to pinpoint one specific fashion trend. “I don’t really care, you wear what you want to wear. I’m no style guru. If you want to wear sweatpants, wear sweatpants. I don’t care. I’m wearing sweatpants right now.”McCarroll attests to having an anything-goes style and obviously he’s doing something right. In addition to being the subject of a new documentary, he was selling his designs in U.S. and European boutiques long before “Runway” and interest has only grown over the last several years. Since the show — where designers compete to create the best garb based on a weekly theme — he’s fashioned his own line, done a show in New York, sold his designs at cutting-edge retailer Urban Outfitters — which has a Walnut Street outlet — and is now teaching fashion figure drawing and a portfolio class at his alma mater, Philadelphia University.The only thing that hasn’t changed is his straightforward attitude.“I’m not one for glamour or red carpet stuff or sexy crap,” he said. “I definitely want people to have my product and I definitely want it to be affordable — there’s better things to spend money on than something disposable. I make stuff for every day, every woman kind of thing; I grew up that way. I grew up loving the sale rack at Gap and going to Sears.”When it comes to wearing only high-end, high-price creations, he said, “I don’t shop that way, my family doesn’t shop that way and my friends don’t shop that way.”Lehman’s a small town with a population of just 3,200 in the ’00 census, but McCarroll’s childhood was far from uneventful. He picked up creativity from his mother, Nancy, a seamstress who cross-stitched, crocheted and worked on the high school marching band’s uniforms of which the designer’s sisters were members, and William, his bricklayer/builder father. McCarroll took to sewing when he was very young, making his own clothes by the time he was in high school.“I always got made fun of,” he said, joking, “I’m a weirdo. You’re just born a weirdo. I made a shirt with pineapples all over it in ninth grade. You think it’s fun and you leave your house and people are like, ‘Oh my God. What is that?’”Casting the comments aside, McCarroll attended the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science — now Philadelphia University — during which time he studied abroad at the London College of Fashion, selling his designs at the open-air Camden Market. The year after graduation, he went back to London and on to Amsterdam, selling his men’s and women’s collections — both casual wear, like most everything he designs — in boutiques for the next two years.His style has morphed over the years, and today he favors stores like Marshalls, T.J. Maxx and Old Navy, where he buys the basics he accents with boutique and fabric store finds, similar to what he said many locals do: a “do-it-yourself style.”Returning to the States in ’00, McCarroll took some time off and moved back to Lehman to run his own vintage store. His involvement with arts and entertainment showcase organization Genart.org led to “Runway.”“[The site] sent out a mass e-mail because they were involved with casting,” he said. “It said they were looking for fashion designers for a reality show. Two weeks later, I got my stuff together, went to New York and auditioned with hundreds of other people. A month or so after that … they called up and said, ‘Be ready in two days,’ so I packed up my stuff and went to New York on a bus where they didn’t stop filming for a month from the moment I got off the bus until the end.”McCarroll and his fellow designers had no idea what to expect when they first faced hosts Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn in July ’04.“The show, in my experience, was a lot of fun,” he said. “There was no formula. It was very hard and motivating. Surreal — like fashion summer camp filmed on television. I just went away and it was on TV and then my whole life changed.”Although he was entitled to several prizes, including $100,000 and a mentor from Banana Republic, McCarroll declined, saying he “wanted to pursue other financial avenues.”He returned to the Big Apple, where he stayed until this past summer. While there, Bravo filmed the one-hour documentary “Project Jay,” which chronicled the months following his “Runway” win.The show may not have been turned into a series, but his time in front of the camera didn’t end there. The “Project Jay” crew followed McCarroll around for a year for what became the 105-minute documentary “Eleven Minutes,” set to hit the film circuit this year. The premise centers on McCarroll’s ’06 prep for the debut of his collection Transport during Fashion Week in Bryant Park, where 12 months of work went into an 11-minute catwalk show, hence the title.“It showed everything from collecting ideas, hair, makeup, jewelry, working with assistants, PR, production, backstage, press and into the show and after the show into sales — the whole process top-to-bottom,” he said. “[The fashion show] was one of the most heinously stressful events of my adult life and I will never do that again.”Making the decision to move to Philly was a no-brainer. Here, he said, he can be more relaxed and with friends and colleagues in a less chaotic environment.“Everyone on the outside thinks New York is the center of the universe and from the inside the people who live there truly believe it,” he said. “Philadelphia is manageable for me. I have a perfect, cute little house, a cat and a car. I like the fact that there are families here, parks, but the neighborhoods are still kind of grimy — raw and real and still developing.”McCarroll, too, is still developing. In fact, he never really stopped: He plans to unveil and sell a woman’s line on West Chester-based shopping channel QVC in the summer, including a beaded sweater and a color block design coat; he writes a blog on this season of “Runway” — its fourth — for elle.com; and his bags and accessories can be found at Mew Gallery, 906 Christian St., and Topstitch, 311 Market St.But he won’t be leaving his new home — where he’s still recognized from the Bravo shows — any time soon. “Oh, God, no!” he said.Just like his signature circle designs, first seen on “Runway” and now incorporated into his pieces, the city is something McCarroll can identify with.“Philadelphia needs people like me, too,” he said. “I feel like a lot of people come down on Philadelphia and it fits me well. Everything I needed to make me a creative person again was in Philadelphia.”
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