![]() ![]() The models themselves could cost $1,200 to $1,500 each for seconds of stomping down a runway, and top models can charge up to $25,000 per show. He adds that sponsorless designers could pay up to $20,000 for hair and makeup teams, on top of doling out $5,000 to $6,000 each for lead makeup and hair stylists that create the models' cosmetic looks. Ungless says the cost of the Academy of Art's show at Bryant Park was kept lower than other fashion shows because sponsors like MAC makeup and Aveda hair care provided free services, but the school still had to pay $50,000 to rent the largest tent space for four hours. McCarroll wouldn't say how much he spent to produce the 11-minute show in September 2006 that's the climax of his documentary, but insiders estimate a budget of more than $100,000. ![]() "For anyone today to think that they don't need to have some kind of business sense is very naive," says Ungless, who had spent years working on 10 collections with British designer Alexander McQueen.Ī large part of the business deals with putting on a runway show during the annual spring and fall Fashion Weeks, the latter of which is taking place in New York this week. By the time a student graduates, he says, about 35 percent to 40 percent of their classes are strictly business-related. ![]() Simon Ungless, the director of fashion at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, tells students at the fashion school to put time into working the industry before venturing out on their own. Requests for comment e-mailed to "Runway" were not immediately answered. Tim Gunn, the designers' mentor on "Project Runway," declined to comment. But you don't ever hear him come out and say, 'Hey, give these guys a chance it's going to take them a couple of years, that's what happened for me.'" "My mother didn't even know who he was until 'Project Runway,' and I think probably 80 percent of America didn't either. "Michael Kors had a business for 15 years before anyone knew who he was," McCarroll notes. And despite McCarroll's access to established designers through "Runway," such as judge Michael Kors, he says he wasn't warned or given any sympathy. McCarroll and Tate blame the naivete on the secretive and "incredibly unnurturing" nature of the fashion industry in educating new designers about its business end. "If you look at his original drawings, and then you look at what actually ended up on the runway, every one of them is compromised," Tate says. Time restraints and a strict budget also limited the more intricate pieces, forcing McCarroll to rethink his vision. As he picked looks to put into production for sale and manufactured showpieces for Fashion Week, reality sank in. The problems started with McCarroll's designs, which were based on inspirations of hot air balloons and vintage ads. "They want to keep it elite, that whole kind of high-end luxurious nonsense." "There's such a mystique - such a thing about the fashion industry - that they don't want to let too much information out," McCarroll says. And even McCarroll didn't know that months of headaches and trial-and-error would be behind the glamorous facade of having a fashion line and runway show. Tate and the documentary's director, Michael Selditch, said they had no idea what the fashion industry was like when they agreed to film McCarroll as he worked on a collection. "At every turn, there was some pitfall and he always fell in it," says Rob Tate, the film's producer and one of its cameramen. McCarroll now sells clothing and jewelry only through his Web site. If the experience didn't send him running to become an accountant, it did downscale his dreams. In the film - a spin-off of McCarroll's TV special that followed his post-Runway win - he's constantly battling his own naivete, the unspoken rules of the business, budget problems and fatigue. His grueling journey of designing a collection and staging a runway show at New York Fashion week in 2006 is captured in the documentary "Eleven Minutes," released Friday in theaters nationwide. ![]() McCarroll knows something about the trials of a new designer setting up shop. "Go be an accountant," says the 34-year-old Philadelphia designer who won season one of Bravo's "Project Runway" four years ago. NEW YORK - Thinking about starting a fashion line? Jay McCarroll says: Don't. ![]()
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