Sam's Tailor

Sam's sells speed, price and celebrity, and it is open about all three. A visitor can choose fabric in the morning, be fitted that afternoon and again the next day, and collect a suit within about 36 hours; a client's 2020 account, published by the shop, describes exactly that, with garments carried back and forth between the shop and a production facility a few kilometers away. The company says each pattern is drafted by hand on paper, that full canvas is standard, and that a two-piece suit in a mid-range fabric starts at about $450 (2026).

Its fame is real. Founded in 1957, the shop made uniforms for British troops until the 1997 handover, marked its 50th anniversary with a Hong Kong postage stamp, and hangs photographs of clients from Bill Clinton to Bruno Mars. Manu Melwani was appointed MBE in 2022, and his son Roshan's videos, begun during the pandemic, have made it one of the most-followed tailors online.

The craft is a different matter. Independent assessments by serious tailoring writers have been poor for years: Permanent Style wrote in 2009 that it had heard almost no positive reports of Sam's work and called it more a tourist destination than a tailor, and members of The London Lounge forum have been equally blunt. A suit cut, made and fitted in a day and a half leaves little room for the corrections that refine a fit, and the company does not say where its workshop is or how much of the sewing is done by hand.

Go for a fast, inexpensive suit, a good story and a photograph with the family. For a suit cut and fitted over weeks in Hong Kong, Empire International Tailors on Mody Road, or the Shanghainese tailors of Central, are the better choice.