FASHION ISSUE: Jay McCarroll runs his mouth about assless skirts, South Philly living and Bobby Brown's farts

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FASHION ISSUE: Jay McCarroll runs his mouth about assless skirts, South Philly living and Bobby Brown's farts

POSTED: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 3:27 PM

Filed Under: Shopping | TV | Fashion ProjRun

Jay McCarroll

Recently we had drinks with a newly svelte Jay McCarroll, Philly celeb and winner of the first season of Project Runway, at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar in South Philly to get some insight for our Spring Fashion Issue. While we were at it we also gabbed about his personal life, his stint on Celebrity Fit Club and that twat of fierceness, Christian Siriano.

On what's ahead for fashion:
Every skirts been done from the crotch to below the ankle, so I don't know what you do beyond that. I'd say maybe assless skirts, which is just like a skirt in the front and your ass hangs out in the back. I was talking to a trend forecaster of mine and she says people will be wearing paper bags over their heads if you've got a butterface.

I'm sick of looking at nerdy people. It's not sexy. Men look terrible right now. The hipsters are so gross; they just look dirty. Philly is a big hipster town, but there's a fine line because a lot of them are tattoo-y rough, which I think is sexy. But then there's this nerdy [look], like the guys who look like they would get the shit kicked out of them in high school... like a brown, ugly polyester pant, greasy hair and a big ugly glass. I'm just not into it.

I think body bags are going to be huge this spring, like being in a body bag (insert burp).

On timeless fashion rules:
Don't wear crop tops if you're fat and I hate Ugg boots: A). Because they're ugly and sloppy and lazy and B.) because they take a fucking whole sheep to make. They use the whole sheepskin and its fur. And when [girls] wear them with a ruffle-y mini skirt that makes me want to kill myself. I also hate when girls wear boys basketball shorts. Those look great on guys because you can see their dicks bouncing around but when teen girls wear them I hate it.The little black dress is stupid. That's like a Tim Gunn [tip], not my tip. Wear what you want â always. Know how to dress your body shape. Sometimes I dress like Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show and if someone says, "You're a 35 year old man, you shouldn't be dressing like a 50 year old African Woman," I'd say, "Go fuck yourself." Wear what you want to wear. There are no rules.

CP: Will you take us thrift shopping one day and pick some stuff out for us?
JM: How much does that pay?

On music and fashion:
Music determines what tone is being set. Pete Wentz â no. You look at it now and it's just like, ew, that's so dated. In real life no one was dressing like Culture Club, but they were dressing like Madonna because they could go to the thrift store and get it. But no one can go to the thrift store and get an Alexander McQueen, reptile, rhinestone lace faced, fucking hoof shoe like Lady Gaga's trying to rock.

I've never picked up what [Rihanna] was laying down. I've always thought she was a shit face. I've heard from insiders that she's a real fucking bitch. I don't think she has any inherent style herself. Her music sucks too. Hopefully with the Lady Gaga situation, the message is to express yourself and be a freak. No one's ever said that before. Her music sucks but she's intelligent and can play an instrument and sing great, but her subject matter is shitty.

On living in South Philly:
I like Philadelphia because I'm removed. New York was awful. It's too big, too many people, and too many people looking at me at the grocery store. I hated it. Here I can be anonymous. I love Philly. It has everything a city should have but it's manageable.

South Philly is affordable. I like how rough and raw it is. I like the grittiness of it. There are great places around and it's so easy to get to South Street or the Gayborhood or Passyunk. The vibe [in South Philly] is good with the people, whether you're at the POPE, Rays Birthday Bar or the coffee shops. It's just good.

CP: Do you regret not taking the prize money when you won Project Runway?
JM: Never. I'll never, ever in a million years to the day I die regret that decision ever. Never, never, never.

On Project Runway stars:
(Burp). That's what I think about them. No, Nina [Garcia] is really nice. She's the only one that treated me like a human being. She told me to take my time and do it on my own terms. It's a vehicle for [Michael Kors], so he has his own agenda. It's great publicity for him. [Heidi Klum] is a product. She hocks everything from Light and Fit yogurt to McDonalds in Germany and hosts [Germany's] Next Top Model to Coca Cola to milk. She'll do whatever. She was nice on the show, but whatever. And Tim Gunn, I just don't get. I think if you play the game he'll really respond to you and I didn't play the game. I'm an odd ball and he's really tightly wound, so someone like me is like the antithesis of someone he can relate to. They all have agendas. They're not on TV to really help people and care and follow through.

[Christian Siriano] is the worst. Period. People come up to me and say, "Thank God you're not him." He's the opposite of me. He's a little cunt. We had much, much, much, much different experiences with [Project Runway]. We were like the guinea pigs. By the time they figured it out it was season 4 and he happened to be in the right place at the right time and then he won and you really had to step back and think. They were really positioning him to be a personality and to take that role. I just saw his collection in New York fashion week — not in person but online — and it's not the vision that everyone wants it to be. Tim Gunn even goes as far as saying that he's the next Marc Jacobs. And Marc Jacobs is fabulous, like a real visionary, a true visionary. And I don't think Christian is. That comes across as jealousy. But I've been looking at fashion for 20 years. I critique classes at Philadelphia University. It's a really big statement to say that Christian Siriano is the next Marc Jacobs. If anything he should just say that he's the next Christian Siriano. But, whatever. I don't like it because people come back to me and say that he's hard to work with, he's a little cunt, he's nasty and he demands a lot of money. And I just feel that it's so not the way that I am.

CP: How much weight did you lose on Celebrity Fit Club?
JM: It's a secret, but I'll tell you. I lost 800 pounds.

On Celebrity Fit Club:
They asked me five days before I had to be there and I went out to LA and got paid to lose weight while living in a fancy ass place in Hollywood. We filmed two days a week, so I had five days a week off. I just hung out and went swimming. It was nice. I got paid handsomely to do so.

I didn't have one French fry in three months, nothing; I was so good because I wanted to do it to see how far I would push myself. It was a good process. It's not ideally in my fashion career what I thought I'd be doing five years after Project Runway, but it was a good opportunity. My father got diabetes when he turned 35 and I was turning 35 on the show and I don't want to have the same fate as him.

There were only eight of us, so we bonded because we were being thrown through horseshit, literally horseshit. It was a surreal experience. I was sleeping in a room with one guy who put his dick in Whitney Houston and one guy who put his dick in Britney Spears. [Bobby Brown] was a snorer and a farter. But everybody farts, what's the difference?

CP: We've heard that you can be difficult to work with...
JM: Yeah, I'm mouthy and I'm obnoxious, and I say it like it is and if you can't handle it... Oh I hear all this information all the time. But chances are those people have never met me. Go fuck yourself, asshole [laughs].

Rick Watson

Posted 2010-03-25 15:56:39

Ohhh, what a bitter bitch!

Posted by Julia West @ 3:27 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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