We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Damien Callahan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Damien, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

I think a lot of what I do tends to stray from industry standards. I don’t use factories for production or outsource design/pattern work. I do each step myself, from start to finish. I source the denim, design the hardware, make the patterns, assemble the garments, service the machines. Each piece is handmade, patterned, cut and sewn by one person.

I also use a lot of vintage machines that could be considered obsolete by industry standards. Machines with distinct purpose that were made in the early to mid 1900’s and designed specifically for sewing heavy materials like denim. They are old and finicky, they take time to maintain and keep operational. Each machine has a single function. One to sew the inseams, one to attach the waistband, another to make the buttonholes. Each one gives the garments I make a bit more character than an average pair off the shelf.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Damien Callahan and I am the owner of Plaza, a one man denim brand based in San Diego, California.

I spent most of my adult professional life in commercial aviation, initially as an aircraft mechanic and most recently as a Program Manager.

I had always been interested in sewing and garment construction but when the pandemic hit in 2020 I started taking it more seriously. I spent the majority of my time during that period learning pattern making, sewing my first samples and collecting machines. I knew from the beginning I wanted to make jeans and focused heavily on sourcing specific machines capable of sewing through heavy raw materials like selvedge denim.

The next few years I spent doing made to order pieces and custom one-off garments until 2023 when I launched my website, Plazadenim.com where I still offer customs along with small batch ready to wear jeans, jackets, and shirts.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I hand make every Plaza garment myself. I have stayed away from outsourcing to factories for garment construction and instead do everything in-house. This has given me a lot of freedom in regard to design and the assembly process.

I have always felt that handmade garments have more character, they are higher quality, and more personal. I think that is something my customers appreciate over a garment mass produced in a factory overseas. Through social media a lot of the process has been documented, customers get to see the machines operate, the denim arrive and the garments being made. At the end of the day they get to be a part of the process and I think that’s rare these days.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

It definitely did. In the beginning I set out to make jeans for myself, I didn’t really have a plan to start a business or make it my career. Over time, interest grew and I started offering custom denim pieces through my Instagram page which eventually led to the launch of Plazadenim.com in early 2023 where I most recently released a full collection of ready to wear denim garments.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Plazadenim.com
• Instagram: PL.A.ZA