What changes when it is a week.
A single day with a private instructor is a fine thing. Six days with the same instructor is a different thing entirely — closer in spirit to a small residency than to a lesson, and the way Snowtailors was originally conceived.
By Tuesday, the instructor reads the family. They know which child is brave at lunch and shy at the chairlift; they know which parent is technically anxious and which one simply wants to ski. By Wednesday, they know enough to anticipate — to suggest the shadier slope before the youngest is too cold, to propose lunch ten minutes earlier because the eldest has gone quiet. By Thursday, the family is no longer being taught; it is being skied with. There is, perhaps, no better word for it.
This is the difference a week makes. The first day with any new instructor — however gifted — is partly an introduction. With six days, the introduction is concluded by Sunday evening, and what follows is five days of refined, unobtrusive guidance. The same instructor for the duration is not a logistical convenience. It is the reason the programme works.
By Wednesday, you stop noticing the instructor is there. By Friday, you cannot imagine the week without them. That is the entire architecture of the Tailored Week. Antoine Sangouard, founder
A typical narrative, Sunday to Friday.
No two Tailored Weeks are alike, but most follow a familiar shape. What follows is the structure that experience has shown works for an intermediate to advanced family of four arriving on Saturday evening. Every detail adjusts.
Observation
Three hours, gentle terrain. The instructor watches more than they teach. Lunch back at the chalet, a quiet planning conversation, a single A4 sheet with the rough shape of the week.
Intensity
Full day, the most ambitious of the week. Cime Caron descent, Saulire crossing, the long red into Méribel. The family is fresh and the snow is usually best at the start. We push the technical work hard before fatigue arrives.
Rest morning
A half-day, often only the morning. Lunch at La Bouitte if a window opens — we hold a relationship with the maître d'. The afternoon is yours: spa, reading, an early hot chocolate at Le K2. Recovery is not optional in a six-day week; it is engineered.
Off-piste
Marion Levasseur joins for the day. Avalanche kit, an early lift, La Masse or the Couloir Tournier depending on conditions. The first taste of powder for the parents; the children skiing on Cascades or Pralong with their dedicated instructor.
Cross-valley
The big crossing. From Val Thorens to Courchevel and back, or a long traverse to Saint-Martin and a wood-fired lunch at La Voûte. The day on which the family realises, with some satisfaction, that they have skied a quarter of France.
Celebration
A shorter, lighter day. The family's favourite slope from the week, repeated with confidence. A celebratory lunch at Les Trois Vallées at Le K2, or L'Ekrin in Méribel. Photographs at the summit. The instructor quietly hands over a small printed map of every kilometre skied that week.
Saturday — departure day — is occasionally a final morning before the airport transfer, most often a quiet rest. We do not push. The week has done its work.
The concierge, quietly in support.
Every Tailored Week includes our concierge layer at no separate fee. This is not a stand-alone service we sell — it is the natural extension of the instructor's work, and the reason the programme is described, by guests, as the easiest ski week they have ever organised.
In practice it means: lunch reservations held two weeks ahead at La Bouitte, Le 1947, La Voûte, L'Ekrin, Le Chabichou — the tables at which a walk-in is essentially impossible in February. Ground transfers from Geneva or Lyon coordinated to the lift gate. Helicopter shuttles arranged through our partners at Mont Blanc Hélicoptères when the week calls for it. Equipment delivered to your chalet on the morning of arrival, collected on the morning of departure, never seen by you in between.
Smaller things: an osteopath who comes to the chalet at six in the evening. A Russian-speaking nanny held on call for the children's bedtime. A late-night spa booking kept open until eleven. A single bouquet of white anemones in the bedroom on the third night, because the instructor noticed they were the only flower the host mother mentioned all week. The concierge layer is not transactional. It is, simply, attention.
When to secure your week.
For Christmas, New Year and the February school weeks, sixty days is the minimum we recommend. Most of our senior instructors are booked four months in advance for those periods, and the very best — Antoine Sangouard, Marion Levasseur, Fabrice Galofaro — are often filled by mid-October for the season ahead. For low-season weeks (early December, late January, the second half of March, April), thirty days is usually sufficient.
The booking process itself is, deliberately, a conversation. We ask for dates, the names and ages of the skiers, the level of each, the chalet or hotel, and — most importantly — the shape of the week you have in mind. Are you here to ski hard, to teach a child, to celebrate an anniversary, to introduce a partner to off-piste? Each answer changes the instructor we propose. We never assign; we always suggest, and you decide.
What the week costs, and what is included.
The Tailored Week is priced on quotation. Every booking is a one-off and we prefer to quote against the specific shape of your week rather than publish a tariff that encourages comparison with services that are not, in fact, comparable.
For an indication: a private week for a family of four, six full days, mid-season, with one senior instructor, sits between €4 200 and €5 600. A week for six skiers with two instructors, including off-piste days and concierge layer, sits between €6 800 and €8 200. A week during Christmas or February school weeks, with our most senior instructors, can reach €9 800. None of these figures are quoted lightly. They reflect six days of an ENSA-certified instructor's continuous attention, plus the concierge arrangement that surrounds it.
Lift passes and equipment are arranged by us but invoiced separately at cost. Helicopter transfers, restaurant bills and chalet stays are the guest's, never ours. We do not take commissions from any partner; we hold relationships, not affiliate codes.