Sam Allemann

Since 1 May 2026, SAM has run 2 floors inside the Gübelin Pavillon at Bürgenstock Resort: ready-to-wear on the ground floor, a made-to-measure atelier above it, open all 7 days from 11 to 19. A second outpost sits inside LesDeux Men, a men's concept store on Bahnhofstrasse in Zug, which SAM's own about page names as one of its partners. Neither address is a shop SAM built from scratch the way its Ballwil and Zürich locations are. It is still one operator running all 4, not a chain of storefronts hiding behind a shared brand: Samuel Roberto Allemann is the named owner on the company's own legal notice, and Bürgenstock, LesDeux Men Zug, and SAM's own ateliers in Ballwil and Zürich all sit on the same site under one company, SAM - fashion & design GmbH.

Ballwil is the one the site itself calls the main atelier, with its own integrated tailoring workshop. The footer groups it under a heading that reads "Luzern," even though the street address, Gibelflüh 5a, is in Ballwil itself. It keeps the longest hours of the 4: Tuesday to Thursday 11 to 20, Friday to 21, Saturday 8 to 17. Zürich, on Giesshübelstrasse, runs Tuesday to Friday 11 to 20 and Saturday 9 to 14. The Zug corner inside LesDeux Men opens Tuesday to Thursday 11 to 19, and it's one of the 2 addresses, alongside the Bürgenstock ground floor, where a groom can walk in without booking anything: made-to-measure work needs an appointment everywhere, but browsing the rack, suits, jackets, shirts, shoes, gets expert advice on the spot at both. Book ahead for a fitting anywhere else, since the site says plainly it travels between all 4 locations rather than staffing each one at once.

Made-to-measure, a separate bespoke tier, and stock you can just buy

SAM's own price list keeps 3 products apart rather than letting "custom" cover all of them. A 2-piece made-to-measure suit starts at CHF 990 in its Professional cloth grade, CHF 1290 in Superior, CHF 1590 in Luxe; a 3-piece with a waistcoat runs CHF 1290 to CHF 1890 across the same 3 grades. Sitting beside that table, in a column the site labels simply Bespoke, is a different product at a different order of price: a 2-piece from CHF 3500, a 3-piece from CHF 4100, a dinner suit also from CHF 3500. SAM doesn't explain on the page what separates the tiers beyond the figure, but its about page gives a clue: production happens in workshops the company names in Morocco, Portugal, Slovakia, Vietnam and Italy, while its external tailors are based in Switzerland. Whether the bespoke price buys a hand-cut pattern built up on Swiss soil, rather than a made-to-measure garment produced abroad and adjusted here, isn't spelled out; a couple who cares about that distinction should ask directly rather than assume the word means what it does on Savile Row.

A third, plainer option sits alongside both. The rail at LesDeux Men in Zug and the ground floor at Bürgenstock carry finished suits, jackets, shirts and shoes a groom can try on and buy the same afternoon, no appointment and no production wait. Nowhere on the site, not in the price list, the FAQ or the terms, does SAM mention renting a suit. If hire is what a groom is after, it isn't offered here in any form.

One fitting, a fit guarantee, and where alterations later go

The process the wedding page and the general made-to-measure page both describe runs the same way regardless of tier: a first appointment of 60 to 90 minutes for style, fabric and measurements, then production, then a single fitting appointment where SAM makes whatever adjustments the suit needs. The price list states plainly that measuring, delivery and any necessary adjustment are included in the quoted figure, under what it calls a fit guarantee; SAM's own terms repeat that the guarantee is part of the made-to-measure service, and that a garment leaves SAM "only once it actually fits."

That guarantee doesn't come with an expiry date, and the FAQ answers a related question directly: alterations on a SAM-made garment stay available at any point afterward, months or years later. Garments SAM didn't make itself are a different story. The FAQ says plainly that the company no longer takes in alteration work on other makers' clothing, for lack of time, and its own pricing page refers general alterations and dry cleaning to a named partner instead, Ismail Hussein at Änderungsatelier LARA, with locations in Zürich's Brunaupark and at Greencity, rather than doing that work in-house.

4 to 6 weeks, or 3 to 5, depending which page you read

A couple flying in for a fixed wedding date needs a lead time they can plan around, and SAM's own pages don't agree on one. The dedicated wedding page promises production "in 3 to 5 weeks." The general FAQ and the main made-to-measure process page, on separate pages of the same site, both give a longer window: 4 to 6 weeks. Express orders are possible "by arrangement" on both accounts, with no surcharge or shortened figure published for either the wedding line or the general suit. With 2 separate pages agreeing on the longer number against 1 page's shorter claim, a couple booking around a date is better off planning for 4 to 6 weeks and treating anything faster as a bonus SAM has to confirm case by case, not the default it might read as on the wedding page alone. The wedding page and the FAQ disagree on the starting price too: the wedding page's own headline reads "from CHF 990," while the FAQ states wedding suits start at CHF 1290 including consultation and fitting. Both figures are printed on the live site; neither has been corrected to match the other.

Money moves before the workshop starts, too: SAM's terms state that made-to-measure and special orders usually require an advance or full payment before production begins, without naming a percentage. Miss an appointment without 24 hours' notice and the terms set a no-show fee of CHF 150, credited back at 50 percent, CHF 75, if a replacement slot gets booked within 30 days. None of that is unusual for a made-to-measure business running 4 locations off one calendar, but it's worth knowing before booking a tight itinerary around a single Zurich or Lucerne stopover.

Cloth, construction and the language the fitting runs in

SAM sources its fabric from Italy and England, and the FAQ is specific rather than vague about what that spans: Vitale Barberis cloth typically sets the entry-level range, with Loro Piana and Scabal named at the exclusive end. Suits are built with either half or full canvas construction depending on the order, a real difference in how a jacket holds its shape that the site states outright rather than leaving to a fitting-room guess. Shirts draw from a stated 300-plus fabrics sourced in Europe, and buying 5 earns a 6th free.

On language, SAM's own about page states its communication style plainly: multilingual, German and English. For a couple who can't run a fitting in German, that is the confirmation to look for, stated by the business itself rather than assumed from a bilingual-looking website.

For a foreign couple after an actual bespoke commission, willing to spend well beyond SAM's made-to-measure floor, or a groom happy with made-to-measure who'd rather fit inside the resort he's already staying at, SAM covers ground most single-atelier tailors in this category don't: 2 genuinely separate price tiers, off-the-rack stock for a groomsman who left it too late, and a location that happens to sit inside the venue itself if the wedding is at Bürgenstock. The catch is timing: with the site's own lead-time figures disagreeing by a week at each end, and every appointment, wherever it happens, run by the same travelling operation rather than a fixed local team, the honest move is to book early and get the date confirmed in writing rather than trust whichever page you read first.