Jay McCarroll's documentary fame

A year and a half after he became Project Runway‘s first winner, Jay McCarroll had approximately 11 minutes to save his career. That’s how long a show at New York’s Fashion Week lasts, and when he debuted his first post-win collection there in September 2006…well, things got messy: A model suffered a wardrobe malfunction and none of the purchased pieces reached their buyer. But Jay bounced back. Today he teaches at Philadelphia University, has a new line on QVC (”it’s comfortable but still super funky,” he reports), and is the subject of Eleven Minutes, a documentary from filmmakers Michael Selditch and Robert Tate — currently making the festival rounds — which chronicles nearly every moment leading to that notorious showing. Says Selditch, ”Part of the story is Jay’s struggle to be taken seriously as a designer. But people pigeonhole him into ‘Oh, sing and dance. Be funny!”’ True to form, McCarroll is ready with a quip: ”We wanted to show how much work it really is. It’s so much more than Christian Siriano’s fierce!”