Daily Fashion Juice
Thursday, October 20, 2011

Fashion guru had many alterations

By Melissa Leong

Jay Manuel recently came across his earliest work in a New York airport. He was in a music store in the classical section when he spotted a CD cover featuring Luciano Pavarotti adorned in a wig and period costume. It had been his first celebrity styling gig.

"It freaked me out. I snapped a picture of it on my iPhone," the 39-year-old Toronto native says in phone interview from Los Angeles, where he is shooting the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model.

The reminder of his roots is fitting since Manuel is preparing to come home with his latest work. The creative director of ANTP and host/executive producer of Canada's Next Top Model is debuting his second collection for Sears' private brand Attitude at LG Fashion Week in Toronto.

"This is something I've wanted to do. The reason this brand has launched in Canada first is that I just felt like I wanted to come back home with this," he says.

At home, before Tyra, Armani and red carpets, Manuel was headed toward a career of triage, arteries and red blood cells. Born to a kidney specialist father and a teacher mother, he was accepted to the University of Toronto in hopes of studying medicine. Meanwhile, he had been flying to New York every month to train in opera singing and coach with the assistant conductor of the Metropolitan Opera.

"It was a very difficult time because I had my headset on going into the medical field and I was very passionate about sciences. But here I was strongly being pulled toward the arts. I just couldn't sleep at night. It was nagging at me. I thought, 'I don't think I can go to school in six weeks. I need to be in New York,' " he says.

"Anyone who knows me today, I'm very much someone who strategizes. I plan things. I remember just feeling so out of sorts. But I had to go with my gut. My parents totally agreed with me. It wasn't this huge confrontation that I thought it would be."

So first medicine, then opera, then fashion?

After moving to New York, he explains, one of his opera teachers was cast in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. Manuel went with her to a photo shoot to do her hair and makeup. The photographer, Christian Steiner, complimented his work.

"I remember saying, 'Oh no. It's not what I do. I'm a tenor,'" he recalls. "Two months later, I thought, this could be a great side gig. I called him out of the blue. He called me the next week. He booked me to shoot a CD cover of Luciano Pavarotti."

It's almost 20 years later and Manuel has made a career doing makeup, directing photo shoots and styling the stars, including Jennifer Lopez, David Bowie and Iman. He has served as a fashion correspondent for E! Networks covering the Oscars and the Grammy Awards.