Master Tailor Saman Amel Will Change the Way You Dress for the Office

On a trip to Sweden this past summer, I tried to pop into the flagship atelier of Saman Amel, a Stockholm-based tailoring house founded in 2015. It was booked solid. Though the decade-old operation still feels like a menswear secret, its vision of Neapolitan craftsmanship tempered by Scandinavian restraint has never looked more prescient—and if demand for the brand’s discreet custom suiting is any indication, word is slowly getting out.

Saman Amel was co-founded by childhood friends Saman Amel and Dag Granath. (When Amel was earning his scissors as a young tailor, Dag was his earliest fit model.) “What we do now is just a continuation of that,” Granath tells me. “I thought of it more as a hobby or a passion project, but over time, it became increasingly serious.”

Today, Saman Amel boasts a flagship atelier in the happening Stockholm neighborhood of Östermalm, along with a second outpost in London, the spiritual home of old-world tailoring. Its clientele spans lawyers, bankers, and globe-trotting creative types, a testament to the enduring appeal of a precisely-cut suit, sure, but also an endorsement of the sensibility that differentiates Saman Amel from its flashier counterparts.

“Great design can be appreciated by anyone, anywhere,” Granath says. It helps that everything Saman Amel makes—a dusty-hued double-breasted suit, say, or a suede barn coat the color of an afternoon espresso—is built for the long haul and can be easily mixed-and-matched, a true mark of luxury in an industry dominated by fickle trends. The other throughline? If you want to buy any of it, you have to go to a Saman Amel store—or wait for one of the brand’s trunk shows in New York or LA.

That’s a feature not a bug, Granath says. “A big part of working with a client [directly] is making sure we curate and offer only the right choices—or at least the most informed ones that will serve him best.” The same degree of personal attention extends to the sweaters, jackets, and shirts the brand custom-makes, too.

The sole exception to the rule (and, really, the reason you’re reading this) is an exclusive collection available at Mr Porter. Each season, Amel and Granath apply the approach of their made-to-measure program to a ready-to-wear line chock-full of exquisite separates, and some of the best off-the-rack suits money can buy.

“We always think about the fabric first,” Granath says. Hence, for example, the plush camel hair used to craft a blanket-soft suit jacket, or the plongé napa leather used in a forthcoming barn coat, or the resilient cashmere used to fortify a V-neck sweater. “These are pieces I own and wear daily, and the more time I spend with them, the more conviction I have in them,” Granath emphasizes. (I’m especially partial to this double-breasted houndstooth blazer, which looks like what happens when a Wall Street tycoon retires to moonlight as an art dealer, and has to update his closet accordingly.)