Excelsior

Ask Excelsior's own FAQ what tuxedo you can actually rent and it answers in one sentence: black, satin shawl collar, satin-covered buttons, a black braid running down the outside seam of the trousers. That's the whole rental lineup, a single house cut rather than a rack of options. It's a useful fact to know before booking a fitting from abroad, because it tells you exactly what kind of business this is: a hire boutique with one design on the rail, not a made-to-measure workshop building a suit from your own instructions, though it runs that service too, on a separate track covered further down.

The heritage claim on the site is dated rather than decorative. Every page checked, home, ceremony, FAQ, services, made-to-measure, brands, carries the same line in its footer: "a Swiss tradition of men's ready-to-wear since 1909." The homepage's own page title reads "Excelsior since 1909," and its meta description repeats the date again. The ceremony page adds a rounder claim in its own words: "for more than 100 years, Excelsior has helped men seal their union with elegance." The shop trades under the name Vetements Excelsior SA, a Swiss corporation with CHF 300'000 in registered share capital, and its own legal notice names Filippo Botticini as administrator, which answers the chain-or-independent question directly: this is one Lausanne company, not a franchise or a department of a bigger retailer, running the same trade since 1909.

CHF 200 rents the jacket and trousers for 4-5 business days. That figure comes with a date attached: the FAQ states it took effect on 30 September 2025 and is still the price in force. Cleaning is included, and so are 2 basic alterations, shortening the jacket sleeves and the trouser legs. Anything more urgent gets billed separately: the FAQ specifically carves out "urgent alterations," turned around within 2-5 hours, as a charge on top. A CHF 400 deposit is due in cash or by card, refunded once the tuxedo comes back and gets checked over, with the FAQ noting a card refund has to land on the same card that paid the deposit in the first place. Everything worn with the jacket, shirt, bow tie, braces, shoes, cufflinks, is sold rather than loaned. The FAQ prices the shirt on its own at CHF 129, in neck sizes 37 to 47, and a bow tie with a matching pocket square from CHF 79. What the site does not publish is a rate for keeping the tuxedo past the initial 4-5 days: the FAQ says only that an extra charge applies, with no figure attached, so a couple planning a multi-day wedding weekend around a rental should ask before assuming a price.

Sizing is where the FAQ gets concrete rather than reassuring. Stock runs from size 44 to 60 in the jacket, plus 2 further ranges printed on the same page, 23 to 30 and 94 to 110, that the FAQ doesn't label further. The suggested visit window is 3-4 days before the event, and the same answer adds that a last-minute visit "will always be offered a solution," worth knowing if a groomsman's flight lands a day late. That fast turnaround is the real selling point of the rental side: nothing about it depends on weeks of lead time, which is not true of the shop's other services.

Made-to-measure runs through named brand programmes, not a solo atelier

Excelsior's own "sur mesure" service is laid out as 4 steps on its made-to-measure page: book with a specialist advisor, get measured by an experienced staff member, choose the fabric, cut and style (down to the buttons and the lining colour, with an optional embroidered name or date), then wait. The production lead time is stated plainly: normally 4-5 weeks, after which the in-house workshop handles any final personalisation once the finished piece reaches the shop. That's a materially longer clock than the tuxedo rental above, and it matters to anyone trying to plan a fitting around a flight home.

The more developed made-to-measure route runs through a named brand programme rather than Excelsior's own pattern room: Canali's "Su Misura," sold in the shop on a seasonal basis under "Me by Canali." It's a garment built to measurement and made in Italy, chosen from more than 500 fabrics and leathers, and it extends past suits into blazers, coats, dress shirts, knitwear, outerwear and leather jackets. Corneliani and Dressler carry the same "Su Misura" or "made to measure" label on Excelsior's own brand list, sitting alongside off-the-peg lines that include Hugo Boss, Emporio Armani, Polo Ralph Lauren, Caruso, Lardini and Corneliani's regular ready-to-wear collections. None of this is bespoke tailoring built from a hand-drafted pattern, and the site never claims that it is: it's measurement-adjusted production run through established houses, with Excelsior's own advisors taking the measurements and placing the order.

The lead times genuinely differ depending on what a couple actually wants, and the site is specific about each one rather than giving a single blanket figure. The ceremony page recommends at least 8 weeks to make use of the "full range of personalisation and options," while personalised accessories, a made-to-order bow tie or lavalliere, are quoted separately at 5 weeks. Renting stays the fast lane: the FAQ's 3-4 day window, or a same-week visit if that's all the time there is.

2 shopfronts, one email, different hours

The Contact page lists 2 separate "Boutique Excelsior" entries rather than one composite address. The first sits at Place Bel-Air 2, open Monday to Friday from 9.30 am to 6.30 pm and Saturday 9 am to 5 pm, reachable on +41 21 312 36 32. The second sits at the corner the site's own address line calls "Angle Gd-St-Jean Louve," keeps a different schedule (closed Monday morning, open from 1.30 pm; Tuesday to Friday 10 am to 6.30 pm; Saturday 10 am to 5 pm), and answers on a different number, +41 21 311 13 55. Both entries share the same email address, excelsior@bluewin.ch, and the site's page footers fold both addresses into one description of the corner they occupy. It's worth calling the number that matches the hours you need rather than assuming either line reaches the same desk at every hour of the week.

One genuine gap worth flagging for anyone booking from outside Switzerland: switching the site to English only relabels the navigation. Headings like "Rental," "Made to Measure" and "Contact" render in English, but the sentences underneath, the rental terms, the FAQ answers, the 4-step made-to-measure guide, stay in French throughout, on the English-language URL as much as the French one. Nothing on the site states whether staff themselves work with clients in English, so a booking made through the English toggle should still expect the conversation itself to happen in French once you're in the shop.

None of that undercuts what the shop is actually good at: a corner of Lausanne it has traded from for more than a century, a rental process specific enough to name its own deposit-refund rule and its own urgent-alteration cutoff, and 3 separate made-to-measure programmes, its own plus Canali's and Corneliani's, for anyone who'd rather keep the suit than hand it back. The trick is matching the right clock to the right plan: book the tuxedo 3 or 4 days out and it's a formality, order anything made to measure and the shop is asking for weeks, not days, to get it right.