Fashionistas who have followed the rise
of Jay McCarroll from the sewing and shopping challenges of the first
season of Project Runway to fashion stardom take heart at the
arrival of Eleven Minutes, a film that documents what happened
to McCarroll after he exited from reality TV.
After winning the first season of
Project Runway, McCarroll returned to his long-standing
pursuit of becoming a working designer. The openly gay McCarroll
turned down the contest's $100,000 prize money, citing a contractual
clause that gave the Project Runway production company a 10%
stake in all his professional ventures in perpetuity.
He also walked away from a Banana
Republic mentorship. “That was totally not anything like what I
needed,” McCarroll said of the offer that pushed distribution over
brand building.
But Project Runway only whetted
a public's appetite for the charismatic McCarrol, and directors
Michael Selditch and Rob Tate have rushed in to fill the void.
Eleven Minutes is the filmmakers' feature film follow up to an
hour-long tribute piece first aired on cable channel Bravo.
The film is McCarroll fumbling through
fashion disasters and red ink as he becomes indoctrinated into the
high-stakes business world of fashion. Through it all, the
teddy-bearish McCarroll remains highly entertaining, calling vaginal
discharge or hot-air balloons the inspiration behind his new
collection about to the unveiled at New York Fashion Week.
“The goal of this new documentary was
to drop the pretenses of reality TV and focus on the work – the
daily trials of designing a line of clothing, putting together a
fashion show and selling the line to stores,” a director's
statement says.
Variety endorsed the film by
saying it “celebrates a triumphant fiasco,” while Express
named it “Project Runway on crack.”
Eleven Minutes premieres on
cable channel here! Friday, February 20.