Ermenegildo Zegna ups the ante on private luxury at its first bespoke atelier in Milan

Customers can choose from 900 suit fabrics at the new bespoke Zegna Atelier in Milan. Courtesy Ermenegildo Zegna

While a typical made-to-measure suit takes about 10 hours, custom-tailoring a bespoke Zegna suit involves 200 steps, during which 150 pieces are assembled for a minimum of 75 working hours. This is the service that the Italian menswear label now offers via its first couture bespoke atelier in Milan.

While Zegna has offered made-to-measure services for close to 20 years, including a London store dedicated to shoes, the new Atelier Zegna raises the stakes further. For one, customers who need or want absolute privacy can access the autonomous atelier through a discreet front door in via Bigli. The space itself is conceived in the fashion of the traditional tailoring atelier: a workshop with an apartment feel.

Each suit involves meeting the tailors four times, but they can fly to wherever the customer happens to be. The service, which is available through worldwide private appointments, can deliver an entire one-of-a-kind wardrobe, including suits, shirts, sportswear, leather pieces, knitwear and shoes. The choice, too, is vast: 900 fabrics for suits, jackets and overcoats, and more than 230 for shirts. Most of these materials come from the Zegna Lanificio textile mill that has been operating in Trivero, Italy, since 1910.

Also, while the starting price for a made-to-measure suit is €1,000 (Dh3,900), a bespoke suit costs between €5,000 and €10,000 (up to (up to Dh39,000).

Zegna's artistic director Alessandro Sartori describes the service as both the height of tradition and the pinnacle of innovation. And while you can end up spending hundreds of thousands of dirhams, we imagine you'll look like a million bucks.