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“I don’t like modern retail,” says Saman Amel, co-founder of his eponymous label, speaking from the brand’s new London atelier that opened in June. “Big lines, fully staffed. I prefer shopping with specialists.”
Amel’s label is certainly specialist: it primarily sells custom-made suiting, starting at £2,600, alongside baggy trousers, leather jackets and vicuña coats that retail for around £30,000 each. “One of our jackets can take 50 hours to make, and six weeks to deliver,” Amel explains. “We create beautiful things that people feel comfortable and sexy in. Good craft allows that.”
With his business partner Dag Granath, Amel launched his brand in Sweden in 2015. The one-of-one pieces are designed in the brand’s outposts in Stockholm and London, and handcrafted in Florence and Naples. It’s quiet luxury, for want of a better term. No logos, just the finest fabrics and materials: raw silk, suede, cashmere, crocodile leather and camel hair. The label blends the softness of Italian tailoring, with a muted palette — navy, black, grey and taupe — familiarised by contemporary Scandi brands. You will never see a bold yellow or patchwork, as you will on Savile Row, the founders say.
“We’re nerdy kids from Stockholm who appreciate craft,” says Amel, who is dressed head to toe in his designs: a louche peak lapel blazer, loose slacks and a pair of leather lace-ups.
Amel, 30, started creating clothes for his friends while studying at Stockholm’s Academy of Cutting and Pattern Making. Granath, 31, got involved soon after. “We made a website and sold socks, much like Ralph Lauren. We built the business on that model with no investment. Everything is the product of our single-unit business, wherein we only create what is ordered.” It was at Pitti Uomo in 2012 that the brand garnered early attention from custom clients. “We were the youngest people there, showing our accessories, and pictures of us [wearing] Stone Island and our own suits made it to street style blogs by Tommy Ton and The Sartorialist.”
The duo felt that there was a space for custom clothing because they relied on it themselves. “Our clients are tired of megabrands,” Amel says.
At first, growth was slow, as Saman Amel established itself in the market. “From 2015 to 2018 sales were limited, but there was a shift in interest in us,” Granath says. “Before that people looked at our business model as outdated.” The brand declined to share exact revenues but confirmed its next annual sales milestone will be €10 million. Last year, revenue grew by 41 per cent, which Granath expects to level out to 25 per cent for 2024. He says this is “very manageable, as [we] don’t need to drastically hire to keep on top of the business”.
Saman Amel now has seven full-time staff across its businesses in Stockholm and London and there will be two more new hires this year. The ateliers, which are appointment only, are booked up for weeks, with only eight slots a day at each location. In an era of immediate gratification and fast fashion, the label is making a big — potentially risky — bet that there’s an audience out there for the antithesis.
“We’re making it very hard to become a customer,” Amel says.
Unconventional retail and authentic brand building
The atelier in London, which took two years to find, is on the second floor of a townhouse and comprises just two rooms, designed in a minimalist Swedish Grace style (an early twentieth-century movement that typically features refined geometric shapes). The first room, painted chocolate brown, has a sofa set and a single jacket in it, which is covered in a tailor’s white stitching.
“It reflects the work that goes into it, and is there as a talking point,” Amel explains. A painting of Amel and Granath by Fredrik Söderberg hangs on the wall, and the room is the point of entry for the brand, where tailors will discuss the client’s requirements. The second room houses the brand’s collections, as inspiration for what a client can have made, as well as a hanging paper suit installation by Lap-See Lam.
Outside of its ateliers, Saman Amel is sold on the brand’s website, and also stocked at Mr Porter and Harrods, with exclusive ready-to-wear collections curated for each of the wholesale partners. It’s a play to be more visible to more people.
“It’s not a big part of our business and constitutes slightly below 10 per cent of total revenue and we are not planning on growing it significantly beyond that,” Granath says. “It’s fun though. With Harrods you don’t have to work solely with fabrics that need to look good on a screen, as the pieces are stocked in the store and online, and so we use more silks. Harrods means more tailoring, while with Mr Porter the customer wants smart separates, so knitwear and simple jackets.”
Looking ahead, Saman Amel is eyeing new opportunities abroad. Some 80 per cent of revenue comes from outside Sweden, and so a New York City store is likely. But minimal expansion suits them as business thrives. They also won’t be looking for investment now, or ever.
“We’ve been doing the same thing for 15 years and it works,” Granath says. “London will become the main epicentre of the brand. London, for us, has always been the capital of Europe and the capital of tailoring. So that’s the focus of the company and why we’ve opened here.”
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