From: Arts and Lifestyle | Cityscape | Sunday, June 16, 2002

Tuxedo Trove
When the invite says black tie, these vendors will suit you just fine

By Bill Morris

Top Rated: Jack Silver Formal Wear It's prom season, it's wedding season, it's class-reunion season. It's Jack Silver Formal Wear season.

This venerable shop near Columbus Circle rents and sells a superb selection of men's formal wear Ñ tuxedos, morning suits, dinner jackets, white tie and tails, even top hats and opera capes, canes and white gloves. But it also features a little something extra that sets it apart from the pack.

It rents out a treasure-trove of vintage tuxedos from the '60s and '70s Ñ in robin's-egg blue, lime-green, lemon-yellow and every other color of the Day-Glo rainbow, plus ruffled shirts, white shoes and bow ties that will make you glad you didn't throw away all of your ABBA and Barry White albums.

"People think nobody's interested in vintage tuxedos. Incorrect!" says Darrin Gordon, 30, the shop's jovial manager, who grew up in Astoria, Queens, and went into the business right after graduating from Flushing High School.

"You'd be surprised how many people want these," he adds, waving at racks of eye-popping tuxedos. "It accounts for about one-quarter of our business. It's because people are bored with traditional tuxedos. Every person's not the same Ñ so why make them wear the same formal wear?" It was a question that had occurred to Magette Diop, who immigrated from Senegal and has been the shop's tailor for the last 14 years. When the shop changed hands several years ago, the new owner wanted to toss out the collection of vintage tuxedos. Diop intervened.

"I said no because I am a tailor and I know this is good quality," he says of the vintage tuxes. "And I think that one day it's going to come back in style. And I was right. If you go to the Village today, you see kids wearing these funky styles."

You don't even have to go to the Village. People rent the vintage tuxes, according to Gordon, for high school and college reunions, anniversaries, birthdays, even company parties.

He tells the story of two lawyers who rented robin's-egg blue tuxes with ruffled shirts for their firm's Christmas party, which was held at the snooty midtown restaurant 21.

"I heard they didn't even get into the party," Gordon says with a laugh. "The doorman must have thought they couldn't possibly be lawyers. He probably thought they were tourists."

Vintage tuxes rent for $130. For the more traditional, a complete black tuxedo rental is from $150 to $270 for a weekend. Shoes rent for between $30 and $40. Specialty shirts rent for between $15 and $30.

The shop does a brisk business with TV shows, opera companies, Broadway openings and awards ceremonies. June, with its many weddings and graduation ceremonies, is a particularly busy month.

"From the classics to whatever it is," says Gordon, pointing from an opera cape to a morning suit to a lime-green tuxedo, "we'll try to do it for you. Call us for anything. It doesn't matter what it is. If we don't have it in stock, we can usually find it."

Jack Silver Formal Wear 1780 Broadway (between 57th and 58th Sts., third floor), (212) 582-0202, www.jacksilverformalwear.com

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