Our story starts in 1984 where there was a little shop on Main Street, between 48th and 49th Avenue. The shop offered a variety of items, including ready-to-wear clothing and formalwear.
In 2007 the same little shop started its first custom line, which included custom shirts and suits.
After years of servicing the Lower Mainland, the shop closed its doors to the public in 2010, and in 2010 the custom line became a by appointment only, referral based, offering.
After years of encouragement to re-open the storefront, listening to customer demand, and seeing the lack of quality and true luxury craftsmanship, we re-opened the family business as Rajani Bespoke in 2023. This time around we went from just custom suiting, to offering bespoke and semi-bespoke custom suits to the Greater Vancouver Area market.
We took the time to source our fabrics from the best mills in the world, and travelled throughout Italy and England to make sure that we were able to bring the absolute best to our clients, offering the epitome of luxury garments from around the world… directly to you.
In August of 2024 we re-branded Rajani Bespoke as The Sartorial Shop, bringing the name in line with our future vision of expanding our business to offer you even more from around the sartorial world.
Founder & Co-Creative Director, Zahir Rajani, has over 15 years of experience in the sartorial and custom clothing world. Both of his grandfathers were tailors in
their respective home countries, and as such, tailoring has always been around Zahir from a young age.
Having spent his childhood around his maternal grandfather, whose focus was on men’s tailoring, Zahir was always intrigued by the details and handwork that went into garments such as suits, shirts, jackets, and trousers. He always wanted to knowwhy
certain lapels were peaked, where others were notched, or why some pants had cuffs,and others were straight hem. Or how to fix a loose suit jacket button, and how never to iron a suit jacket, but to steam it instead. Watching his grandfather focus on all of these finer details started to become a part of Zahir’s day-to-day.
Lucky for Zahir, his parents owned a clothing store, which first opened in 1984. As time
went on, and when not with his grandparents or participating in afterschoolactivities, he would be with his parents at their shop. The shop carried, among several other items, exclusive ready-to-wear tailored outfits for children, including suits and tuxedos for boys. You can only imagine how happy Zahir was when new items would come in!
In 2007, when three of Zahir’s older cousins were set to get married, one after the other, he realized that not only did he need some new suits, but his family members did as well. So what did he do? Leveraged the resources available through his parents’ shop, and started to research custom menswear! After trialing a few manufactures, he was able to successfully launch a custom clothing line, which catered to not just him and his family for these upcoming weddings, but also to the shop’s customers.
In 2010, his parents decided to close their 26 year old business, and thus Zahir took the custom clothing line private. While the focus, at the time, wasn’t to grow or expand it, it kept him busy during his free time with friends, family, himself, and some referrals.
Fast-forward to 2023, after working as a high-level executive in global real estate, Zahir decided to put the pen down on contract negotiations and re-focus his efforts and skills on the sartorial world, and world of custom and bespoke tailoring.
After months of R&D, meeting with fabric mills and various other suppliers and partners around the world, he re-branded and re-opened the family business… And the rest, as they say, is history!
Anastasia is both Zahir’s life partner, and business partner. She is the force behind our styles and design work. As a Greek, who was born and raised in Kenya, and lived in Australia as she completed her post-secondary education, she brings a fresh and unique perspective to both style and fashion. She has a keen eye for detail & colours, and how they’ll complement an individual, as well as how subtle ideas will both stand out and stand the test of time. Anastasia brings European flare to Vancouver’s fashion scene, and has a penchant for designing outfits which will make heads turn.
