His suits come alive from the waist down

For the past five years, Jack Sivan has been running a small tailoring and menswear business out of the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his wife and three guinea pigs (Bagel, Panda and Faun).

- MAX BERLINGER

Recent events have had him thinking about working someplace other than his home.

Sivan's namesake brand received outsize exposure this year when actor Ato Essandoh, a star of the Netflix series The Diplomat, wore a custom tuxedo to the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February. The ensemble included a cropped midnight blue jacket with satin lapels, a crisp white button-up shirt, a black bow tie and a long pleated skirt that nearly fell to the floor.

"When I put it on, it just felt good," Essandoh said in an interview, adding that his stylist, John Tan, had introduced him to Sivan. "Sometimes you wear something and it feels right," the actor said. "It felt regal and I loved the way that it flowed." The tuxedo caught the attention of Essandoh's peers including his Diplomat castmate Keri Russell and Abbott Elementary actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, he said, who stopped him and "was like, boy, look at what you're wearing!"

Not long before dressing Essandoh, Sivan landed his first wholesale account with Ford General, a store in Chicago. In May, it will start selling pieces from Sivan's burgeoning ready-to-wear line, which includes items like a double-breasted linen blazer (US$1,155, or 38,600 baht), striped linen pants ($575) and a matching military-inspired jacket ($685).