Shopping With…Jay McCarroll, “Project Runway” Designer, Reality TV Star
Lauren David Peden Wed Feb 22, 3:12 PM ET
Fashion Wire Daily – New York – When it comes to Jay McCarroll – winner of the first season of Bravo’s hit fashion reality show, “Project Runway,” and star of his own one-hour spin off, “Project Jay” (premiering Wednesday, February 22nd at 11 p.m. EST), there seems to be no middle ground: People either love him, or they love to hate him.
The gregarious, opinionated, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants 31-year-old is funny as sin and is a talented designer with a unique and timely point of view, as anyone who saw the show and his winning collection – which was heavy on quirky hand knits – can attest.
But the Lehman, Pennsylvania native – the youngest of six children born into a working class family of award winning quilters – is also wracked with insecurity and is obviously (and very vocally) conflicted about the fashion industry and his place in it.
And therein lies the rub – and the plot of “Project Jay,” which follows McCarroll as he relocates to New York, attempts to get his business off the ground, queasily navigates the ups and downs of insta-fame, deals with everyday problems like undergoing back surgery for a herniated disk, along with the usual trials and tribulations that plague anyone making a major life change. The difference is, McCarroll does it while cameras document his every move, and the results are both hilarious and heartbreaking.
“‘Project Jay’ is a continuation about what happens after ‘Project Runway,'” explained the black-clad McCarroll when we met him at the Herald Square branch of his “all-time favorite store,” Lush (1293 Broadway; 212-564-9120; www.lushusa.com). He was sporting Old Navy trousers, a black t-shirt, hoodie, thrift shop leather jacket, Hammock Bag, Asics sneakers and a trendy new haircut (“I got sick of looking at myself on TV as this clown/monkey/hippie Bruce Vilanch character,” said McCarroll, who refers to himself in the special as “Sasquatch”).
“It was supposed to be eight episodes but they kept scaling it down, even before they’d seen a rough cut,” he added of his show. “So it was really hard for me this whole summer because I made some major changes – I moved and quit smoking, which is a big huge thing – and was trying to get my stuff together along with trying to be on a TV show, and it really affected my career to the point where I’m not showing a line in February [during fashion week]. And it’s hard because they want me to be Jay from ‘Project Runway’ and my life is not zany, crazy, always funny. My life is back surgery and I’m feeling lost. Still, I have my studio here and I have 50 looks for a [Spring 2014] collection developed and I have fabric, but where’s the money? I didn’t take the prize money…”
Yeah, about that. We tell him we heard a rumor that the reason he didn’t accept the $100,000 prize and everything that went with it is that if he had, Miramax and the good folks at “Project Runway” would have owned 10 percent of his name (and the resulting profits) in perpetuity.
“I can’t talk about it,” he replied with a grimace. “I had a great experience on the show. But the aftermath has been confusing and stressful and retarded at times.”
What he could talk about was the aesthetic of his upcoming collection, which he describes in “Project Jay” as being “accessible, wearable, affordable.”
“The intention is just to be easy,” he explained as we entered Lush, which was laid out like a deli, with produce-style bins and shelves of, yes, luscious-smelling bath, beauty and grooming products. “Not easy as in boring or simple, but I like to base everything off jeans and t-shirts. It’s America, after all. Even Charlize Theron and Madonna wear t-shirts and track suits. We concentrate so much in fashion on, like, Zac Posen’s satin-piped bodices and Art Deco bs, and it’s expensive, overrated and probably made like crap. And there is such a push to use fine, expensive fabrics and make $2400 shirts. That’s rent for people, or a college fund! It’s clothes at the end of the day. It’s not a cancer drug, it’s not an AIDS cure. I’d rather sell four hundred million t-shirts at $24.99 apiece and build the house that way then sell eight gowns to some bs artist’s dumb wife.”
Point taken. Which brings us to the reason he loves Lush.
“I’ve been using their products since 1995 when I studied in London,” he said while picking up a shopping basket. “It’s not tested on animals, it’s organic, [the company] treats their employees right, their products work and they smell great! I use seventeen of their products on a daily basis, which is retarded for a man. I use their shave cream, shampoo, conditioner, toner, face soap, foot powder, bath soap, liquid soaps… I’m a junkie!”
On the day we met, the junkie was jonesing to replenish his stock of most of the above, and he whipped out a list, which he consulted before announcing “I need to start off with my lip balm.”
Before he found lip balm, the designer got waylaid by a display of Fresh Farmacy (“it’s chamomile and calamine facial soap and makes your skin great”), and a bin of Big Blue Bath Bombs, a fizzy Alka-Seltzer-like treatment ($5.25) that “turns the bath Caribbean blue,” said McCarroll, who added that he likes to take a bath at least once a week in New York “because I feel like a grimy ditch pig when I’m here. It’s disgusting in this town.” (Though he freely admitted that he hadn’t showered on the day we met because he had been out late drinking the night before.)
Reverend McCarroll continued to rove from display to display, enthusiastically singing the praises of everything from Cynthia Sylvia Stout shampoo (“It’s made with Irish Stout, lemon and cognac oil and it smells like beer. It smells like my old man. Great!”) to the lemon scented Veganese Conditioner (“I’m not a vegetarian but I’d love to be. My sister is and I’m jealous. I love how they’re so scrawny and weedy-looking and they’re just like, ‘I stink and I don’t care'”) to Black Pearl Bath bomb (“Oh, awesome! It leaves silver sediments on you while you’re taking a bath so you get a little glittery”).
Just as we were about to chime in with an Amen, Brother Jay’s sermon was interrupted by a young woman who told him how much she loved him on “Project Runway” and how his winning collection was her favorite. “You’re the best!” she gushed enthusiastically.
McCarroll thanked her graciously but sputtered, “That is so embarrassing!” as soon as she was out of earshot.
No, it’s sweet.
“No, it’s weird,” he replied. “But they’re always really appreciative and genuine. Ninety-eight percent of them are great. I’ve only had two people hate me. One guy said to me, ‘You fat [expletive deleted]!’ I was like, ‘What did I do wrong?’ But usually they’re like [whispers] ‘I like you’ and I’m, like, ‘Cool.'”
He piloted us to yet another display – “Ooh la la, this way!” – and filled his basket with Prince Shaving Cream, Tea Tree Water, Avobath, Honey I Washed the Kids and Mr. Butterball Bath Bombs, lip balm and a few other sundry items.
Before heading to the counter to pay, he greeted the manager, who knew him from his weekly visits (“I actually got an application to work here before I went for ‘Project Runway'”) and then he demonstrated the Whoosh reviving Temple Balm by gently rubbing some onto the sides of our forehead (“Do you feel anything? Feel refreshed? It smells good!”).
The designer was beside himself with joy when informed that since he was spending more than $100 ($111.27, to be precise) he was entitled to six items from the “Big Free” giveaway basket, though his joy faded slightly when he caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby mirror (“Oh, I look like Velma from ‘Scooby-Do'”).
McCarroll invited us back to his Garment District studio to see sketches of his Spring 2014 collection, which were pinned up on a wall next to an inspiration board featuring photos of ’60s model Peggy Moffitt and Sofia Coppola (“I don’t like her, but I love the shape of this dress and the background colors”). We were sworn to secrecy about the collection, but suffice it to say it’s colorful, streetwise and R-O-C-K-S in the best sense of the word.
“Peggy Moffit, man,” he enthused of his muse. “She’s like [intoned in robot voice] ‘I’m a weird sculpture. I’m mannequin woman.’ That time period was so amazing. You know, Paris Hilton is a joke to me. Lindsay Lohan is supposedly the new face of Chanel. It’s like, ‘Who is the hot new thing?’ That’s why fashion is so fickle. I just stay out of it and do what I want to do.”
After the designer showed us around his white-walled workspace, which contained shelves stocked high with fabrics sorted by color and a small sitting area whose couch was strewn with lovely quilt-appliqued pillows he had made by hand, we asked what we could tell people about his upcoming line.
“That’s it a cleaner Jay,” he replied. “Not so dirty-street. We’re living more on Clean Street now.”
