The rising empire of Australian pop-artist Troye Sivan
The actor, pop artist and entrepreneur expands the reach of his lifestyle brand, Tsu Lange Yor, in a deal with cosmetics giant Mecca.
Troye Sivan has a lot going on, but he’s not letting it show. The 29-year-old pop artist (and 2023 GQ Man of the Year) is back in Australia after wrapping up a 19-date European tour in support of his sublime, Grammy-nominated third album, Something to Give Each Other. “Today is my first day of, like, feeling normal,” he says with a breezy laugh.
When Life & Times catches up with Sivan over a video call, he is beaming from the warmly lit bedroom of his Melbourne home. In the background hangs an ultramarine painting by Sydney artist Tom Polo. Dressed in a worn-out terracotta Acne Studios tee and sporting a fresh haircut, he has the kind of unreal glow one tends to associate with fountain-of-youth-fixated billionaires who spend their days eating algae-green sludge and wasting away in cryotherapy chambers.
Sivan’s house is famous in its own right. The tri-level Carlton house — originally a 19th-century handball court transformed by architect John Mockridge in 1970 into Australia’s first warehouse conversion — went viral in 2021. An Architectural Digest spread and accompanying YouTube walkthrough had Sivan’s Gen Z fans frantically scheming as to how they were going to a) acquire his Maker & Sons five-figure malachite sofa and b) squeeze it into their sharehouse.
For Sivan, who was born in South Africa and raised Orthodox Jewish in Australia, the idea of home is sacred, both in the literal and emotional sense. This is part of the reason behind his co-founding the lifestyle brand Tsu Lange Yor with his older brother Steele Mellet.
Tsu Lange Yor, whose name derives from the Yiddish phrase “To long years and to good years,” launched last year with three perfumes and a selection of objects designed by artist Joel Adler. These include a 250-run recycled aluminum dreidel ($1,800), a molar-shaped oil burner ($290), and, to the internet’s delight and derision, a bottomless bowl ($196 to $718) — which Sivan describes as “really beautiful, luxurious, and kind of indulgent.” To him, the bottomless bowl is an object with “a clear sense of humour and self-awareness to it but at the same time it’s a beautiful, functional, subversive object.”
This month, Tsu Lange Yor will expand to Mecca — becoming the first Australian brand inducted into the cosmetic giant’s Parfumeria. Mecca will stock fragrances, candles and home objects, all of them made in Australia, from the brand. “Mecca has always been the dream for us,” Sivan says. “When I started this with my older brother, we really intentionally decided to keep it very homegrown. It had to feel like home, and it had to feel like us,” he says.
Sivan had plenty of opportunities to work with “some brand and just take products that already existed, slap my name on it, and call it a day,” but always turned them down. “It was not the way I wanted to do it,” he says. “Something that I’ve learned over the years in doing music is that people are smart and can tell when something is genuine and when it’s not. It was only interesting to me if I got to do it properly, and part of doing it properly was doing it in Australia.”
In the spirit of keeping the Tsu Lange Yor operation homegrown, Sivan assembled a killer Australian team, something he says was a “no-brainer.” He name checks photographer Joe Brennan, creative director (and singer of The Deep Faith) Byron Spencer, and hairstylist Fernando Miranda. “The first time we [Miranda] ever worked together was on a TLY shoot, and cut to us going to the Grammys together.”
“There are people here that I love so much that I want to celebrate and give a platform to and show the world, like, ‘Hey look, this is what’s going on here.’ There is incredible talent here, and one of the objectives for the brand is to keep pointing back to Australia,” he says.
“Mecca has always been the dream for us. When I started this with my older brother, we really intentionally decided to keep it very homegrown. It had to feel like home”
Sivan isn’t just paying lip service to Australia either. At the May pop-up shop for Tsu Lange Yor in New York City’s ultra-trendy NoLita, where fans rubbed shoulders with stars like Moses Sumney, Charli XCX, and The Dare, Sivan went to the effort of having his collection of Australian art shipped over. Partly because he wanted to woo the crowd, but also because he wanted to transplant the works to his home in Hollywood Hills. “When I have people over for a dinner party, I want to be able to explain to them that I bought this [artwork] at a grad show, or that I found it at the Melbourne art fair.”
“Maybe I over-romanticise Australia because I spend too much time away from it or something, but I’m obsessed and I want to scream from the rooftops about it.”
The day before our conversation, Sivan unveiled the long-awaited Australian dates for his Something to Give Each Other tour. “I’m so relieved to have announced it; it’s been on my mind for so long,” he says. “We’re playing the steps of the Sydney Opera House. These are venues I’ve been dreaming of my entire life.”
This upcoming tour, his first extensive run of Australian shows in five years, is special and nerve-wracking in equal measure. “I’m so proud of the show. It feels like I go overseas and do all this work that I’m so proud of, but it feels kind of very separate from my life here,” he pauses for a beat. “The moments when I do get to bring something back to Australia and show my friends and family what I’ve been up to, I get really excited to do that.”
Does it feel different, performing here? “I get more nervous,” Sivan admits. “It’s one thing to do all the stuff I get up to in Düsseldorf, where I don’t know anyone… Coming back to Melbourne it’s like, nobody look, everybody turn away.”
By “stuff he gets up to,” he means the exuberantly lusty live spectacle he put together for the tour. The ambitiously choreographed, meticulously styled show — featuring recreations like Madonna’s canonical 1989 Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra and custom harnessed Helmut Lang looks designed by Peter Do that lovingly pay homage to the queer underground rave scene — set the internet’s loins alight when it opened in Lisbon in May. This was, in part, thanks to footage of the moment in which Sivan sings into a microphone dangling between a dancer’s thighs.
It is a surprise that Sivan, who has been famous for half of his life, admits to feeling shy. He came of age in front of a global audience as an endearingly goofy YouTube vlogger, then as an actor, sharing the stage with Ian McKellen in a 2010 production of Waiting for Godot, and starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe in Joel Edgerton’s 2018 drama Boy Erased. His last acting credit was in the most talked about (and most maligned) show of last year, HBO’s music industry satire The Idol.
“I think I take a lot of comfort in being able to switch on and off when I want to. In my work life, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever being the centre of attention — I love being on stage. But in my personal life, I’m the opposite — I much prefer to be low-key.”
Before he braves Australia, Sivan will embark on one of the most hyped tours of the year when he hits the road with his ‘1999’ collaborator Charli XCX for a series of arena shows dubbed the “Sweat Tour.” In case you missed the slime green memo, while we suffer through a bitter Australian winter, the rest of the world is living the braless bacchanalia that is “Brat Summer” — a mind-set ushered in by Charli XCX’s phenomenally successful sixth album, Brat.
Sivan and Charli XCX are, in a way, twin flames. Throughout their careers, they’ve been uniquely 21st-century stars. In certain corners of the internet, especially among devoted pop music fans — mostly young women and queer men — they might as well be the most famous artists on the planet. Yet, among the wider public, their name recognition has been patchy. That all changed with the release of their latest albums; suddenly, it felt like the whole world was listening.
“I’ve been watching Charli as a friend and collaborator from the sidelines for so long. This is what she deserves,” Sivan says of his pop conspirator. Though he admits that he is clueless as to why, now, their music is resonating on such a monumental scale.
“We’ve been working for so long and doing what we love so much and the thing that is so crazy is that I feel like we’re both still on our path, and for whatever reason — and this is the part that I don’t really know — it feels that there’s this moment of everyone coming together to celebrate that.”
Tsu Lange Yor will be available exclusively from select MECCA stores and online from July 30, 2024.
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