Kostümverleih Jäger

On Kostümverleih Jäger's own rental page, "Frack | Smoking mieten" (tailcoat and tuxedo hire) sits in one nav list between "Biedermeierkleider mieten" and "Uniformen | Mützen" (uniforms and caps), then "Trachten mieten" (folk costume). Renting either garment needs an appointment and a set of measurements, the same requirement as a theatre costume, a costume for a group of more than 2 people, or an outfit for the Sechseläuten parade in neighbouring Zurich. Nothing on the page singles formalwear out. Across every page this listing checked, the homepage, the rental terms, the measurement form, both enquiry forms, the References list, the Impressum, the Event-Ausstattung page, the Theater-Kostüme and Verkauf stubs, and the Ball Impérial page, the German words for wedding, bride and groom never appear once. Kostümverleih Jäger rents a groom a tailcoat the way it rents a knight's costume or a flapper dress from the 20s: pulled from stock, priced by the costume, with nothing about the occasion built into the transaction.

Kostümverleih Jäger AG runs a single shop at St. Georgenstrasse 3 in St. Gallen, under managing director Agnes Faisst, named as the company's authorised representative in its own Impressum. A banner that runs on every page reads "145 Jahre Leidenschaft für Kostüme", 145 years of passion for costumes, and adds that the business, serving theatre, film and private customers, is looking for a suitable successor by 2028 to carry the story forward. That's a statement about continuing, not closing: a shop actively planning its own handover rather than winding one down. A dated blog post from 27 August 2019 states the same age differently, "over 138 years" of collecting historical costumes. Written 6 years apart, the 2 figures read as the same claim aging rather than a real disagreement.

Frack and Smoking sit beside uniforms and folk dress, never near a wedding

The Verleih (rental) page splits the whole 15,000-piece collection, kept on 3 floors, into 2 booking tracks. One needs no appointment at all: costumes from the 20s (the site's own English tag is "Golden Twenties"), 50s Rocker-Billy outfits, 70s Flower-Power pieces and Bavarian Trachten can be tried on and reserved the moment someone walks in. The other needs advance notice and a measurement, because the pieces are individually put together to fit: Smoking (the site glosses this itself as "Tuxedo/Black Tie"), Frack, uniforms, theatre costumes, costumes for parties of more than 2, and Sechseläuten outfits. A tailcoat or a tuxedo sits in that second track next to a stage costume and a parade outfit, not next to anything the site frames as bridal or formal-event wear for a couple. The Frack gallery itself is thin: 9 photographs, no captions naming a cut, a colour or a size, exactly the treatment every other costume gallery on the site gets.

11 measurements and a deposit, never a cut pattern

This is a hire business, full stop. Nothing on the site describes cutting a garment to a customer's own pattern, and the page linked as "Verkauf" (Sale) carries no text at all beyond the shop's standard header and footer, so there's no evidence Kostümverleih Jäger sells a costume outright either; a second stub page, "Theater-Kostüme", is just as empty. Fit comes from choosing among many stock pieces and, for the appointment-only categories, filling in the Masszettel, a form asking for 11 separate figures: ready-to-wear size, full body height, head circumference for hats, collar number for shirts, chest, waist (measured at the trouser waistband), stomach, hip, the length from waistband to hem, sleeve length and shoe size. Submitting it in advance is how someone books a fitting without travelling to St. Gallen first. The booking itself runs in 3 steps, printed on the rental page as its own process: choose, try on and reserve with a 50% deposit; collect the costume 1 day before it's needed; return it on the first working day after. No standalone alteration service is mentioned anywhere, and no travelling or off-site fitting exists either. Everything happens at the shop, on the 4 days a week it opens.

CHF 30 to CHF 350 a costume, and what happens if you're late

Kostümverleih Jäger publishes one price band for the whole collection: from CHF 30 up to CHF 350, cleaning included, per costume. Nothing on the site breaks that figure down by category, so there's no separate published price for a tailcoat or a tuxedo specifically; a couple would need to ask directly. A costume returned late costs CHF 10 a day. The cancellation terms are printed twice on the same page, in nearly identical wording: cancelling ahead of the appointment forfeits the deposit, which the site says covers preparation, fitting and returning the piece to stock; cancelling close to the day the costume was due to be worn makes the full rental amount payable. Payment is Maestro, EC-card, PostCard or cash. The site states plainly that it does not accept credit cards.

Musicals, operettas and one film, credited by name

The References page is the strongest evidence that this is a working theatrical costumer rather than a novelty shop. Named credits include the musicals "Anything Goes" and "Hairspray", the operettas "Die Zirkusprinzessin" and Paganini, "Der Vogelhändler", "Der Bettelstudent", "My Fair Lady" and "Land des Lächelns", the open-air production of "Anna Göldi" at Rüthi in 2020, a separate 2020 production called "Carmen Werdenberg", the film "Das Deckelbad", another named "Der Fährmann", and a music video for Sandro Dietrich's "Hakuna Matata". None of these credits touch on weddings, but together they show a costume house whose actual client base is stages and film sets, which lines up with everything else on the site.

Beyond the rack: a ball for 80 once, a party package from 20 now

2 pages go past simple hire. Event-Ausstattung offers a full-service themed party: Kostümverleih Jäger brings the costumes to a client's own venue, dresses the guests, and helps them change back afterwards, for named themes including a 20s Charleston party, a Western party, a medieval "Rittertafel" with a lute player and a jester, a "1001 Nights" party with a belly dancer, and a 50s Rock & Roll night. A quote is offered from 20 people, and the page is signed personally by Agnes Faisst as Geschäftsführerin. Separately, a Ball Impérial page invites guests to a second edition of the shop's own Rococo-themed ball, dated 6 June 2020, at the Historical and Ethnographic Museum in St. Gallen: 15 dressers on hand from 4pm, a coach ride, a banquet, 3 dance masters and live music, CHF 395 a ticket, capped at 80 seats. Nothing newer than that invitation exists anywhere on the site, so it reads as a past flagship event rather than a current offer, useful only as proof of what the shop can stage at full stretch: dressing, styling and running an entire evening, not just handing over a costume.

None of this is aimed at weddings, and nothing here should be read as if it were. The site is entirely in German, no English translation anywhere and no language switcher, and there are no customer reviews anywhere to check against. Opening hours are narrow: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday only, 9am to noon and 1:30pm to 6pm, at a single address with no branch elsewhere. What a couple gets, if they go anyway, is real: a 145-year collection of 15,000 pieces with genuine theatre and film credits, a tailcoat or a tuxedo priced and processed exactly like every other costume in the building, and a business that is actively looking for someone to keep it running past 2028 rather than winding down. Treat it as a costumer that happens to stock formalwear, not a wedding supplier, and the terms above are the ones to plan a visit around.