Unusually Famous: Why TikTok’s top tailor slaps customers’ butts

The most popular tailor on TikTok isn’t known for his well-fitting suits. Instead, Roshan Melwani is famous for smacking his clients’ butts; something they specifically visit his shop just to experience.

Sam’s Tailor is one of Hong Kong’s most iconic bespoke tailors.

First opened in 1957, the company has achieved international acclaim for clothing A-List celebrities, royalty, and other high-profile clients over the ensuing decades.

In more recent times, the shop has garnered a reputation of a different kind thanks to Roshan Melwani, an up-and-coming TikTok star whose claim to fame is making the clients of Sam’s Tailor as uncomfortable as possible. We spoke with Melwani about his work at Sam’s Tailor, his penchant for pinching his clients’ bums, and why he isn’t afraid of getting canceled over his content.

Click here to watch the full interview.

Butt-smacking TikTok star makes Sam’s Tailor go viral

Although Sam’s Tailor boasts quite an esteemed reputation of its own, Roshan Melwani’s TikTok videos have made the family business extra-famous on social media. Melwani is known for smacking his clients’ butts and teasing them with sexually-charged, non-politically correct language. From kissing, licking, and even groping his customers, Melwani’s outrageous videos have garnered millions of views.

In one of Melwani’s most-viewed videos, he clothes a supposed member of Japan’s Yakuza, and doesn’t seem worried at all that he might get roughed up for calling him “short,” saying he likes to “open up boys” and even asking him: “You are over 18, right?”

Comments underneath Melwani’s TikTok clips are almost always positive, but he says he’s not worried about being canceled for his content, which some feel toes the line between what is and isn’t socially acceptable.

“If every channel shuts me down, I will still thrive, because I make a great product,” he told us.. “They’re brilliant f*cking suits. And you think I’m worried about being canceled? Bro, come after me. People have been trying to cancel me for 35 years, because I don’t think there’s anybody out there doing this kind of stuff.”

“I think my videos are less risky now, because I’m very conscious of this social media community guidelines, and all this stuff,” he added. “But before, I think I was more out there. I was smacking away, abusing away, being funny — kissing, licking, sniffing, whatever.

“I don’t think I could push the boundary any more. I wouldn’t pull my d*ck out. I think the fun is consensual.”

From “sheer hard work” to TikTok fame: The story of Sam’s Tailor

Melwani is the latest generation to take over at Sam’s Tailor, his family’s business. Although he’s been working at the shop since he was just a lad, he began advertising the company and its high-profile clientele online ever since social media came around — and while his family wasn’t pleased about it at first, they quickly came around once he went viral.

“I was born famous, and I’ve managed to catch the times at every stage of my career,” he explained. “I’m an early adopter. I started posting on Facebook as soon as Facebook was available, and I copped a lot of abuse from my dad and uncle.”

“He goes, ‘What are you doing putting customers on the Sam’s Taylor Facebook? These guys are yelling at me. We’re gonna be hacked.’ The coin has flipped so much that every day my dad is grabbing me. ‘Do a photo with them! Take a video with them!'”

Sigourney Weaver, Celine Dion, and President George Bush Sr. are just a few of the major clients who have been served by Sam’s Tailor — and his rise to TikTok fame is just another arc on the shop’s path to success, one that Melwani is also enjoying.

“I’ve created a phenomenon. I’m not gonna compare myself to the Eiffel Tower. What else is there to do in Hong Kong? I’m like a beacon there. We don’t have an Empire State Building, we don’t have a Statue of Liberty. We don’t have Buckingham Palace. Suddenly you have me, the TikTok Tailor. What else is there to do?”

Overall, Melwani calls the shop and his TikTok fame an “amazing blessing” that’s helping him spread his family’s success and his client’s happiness. Although he’s certainly unusually famous — and maybe a bit over-the-top for some — this advertising is clearly making a big name for an already famous business online.