There was a time, not long ago, when raw denim ruled. Online forums hummed with fade diaries and advice — soak them, freeze them, never wash them — while a cult of obsessives celebrated every crease and whisker. By the early 2010s, stiff jeans had graduated from niche fixation to bonafide category.
Then streetwear and sneakers exploded, pushing denimheads to the sidelines. But with hype culture past its apex, there’s a renewed appetite for quality products, including raw denim. Mall brands are beginning to restock selvedge again, and small-batch makers have kept the tradition alive. But for Canadians looking closer to home, Toronto-based PlazaWorks offers an intriguing alternative, driven by the same impulse that prizes fit and quality.
“Some stores make you feel like you should already know everything. We try to make complicated things easy.”Chee Maduekwe
Launched in 2023 by GTA native Chee Maduekwe — who first studied criminology to appease his Nigerian parents before pivoting to fashion business and design — PlazaWorks took shape after an eye-opening stint in product development at Canada Goose. When Maduekwe was laid off, he’d already planted the seeds of his own brand. The setback pushed him to make the side hustle the main act: tightening operations, investing more cash, and recruiting a small team of friends and collaborators.
For Maduekwe, the goal is to bring high-quality raw and selvedge denim to people who might otherwise find it intimidating. For younger consumers who missed out on the original raw-denim craze, he wants the experience to feel effortless and welcoming. “Some stores make you feel like you should already know everything,” he says. “We try to make complicated things easy.” A key part of that approach is PlazaWorks’s Toronto showroom, where staff hem jeans on the spot. “A lot of people don’t know where to take their jeans or even that they should hem them,” he says. “We remove that barrier.”
PlazaWorks’s appeal is also in the community Maduekwe is building around the brand. He regularly posts customers and friends wearing their jeans, creating an ongoing lookbook of downtown cool. A former DJ, he still loves hosting events; this spring, 600 people filled the showroom and rooftop for a night that rivalled the easy buzz of your favourite bar.
Maduekwe delights in talking customers through fabrics, fades, care, and inseams. It took him nearly two years of drafting and testing to land on the right fit — a single unisex base refined through countless fittings. In the beginning, he sewed every pair himself, finishing inseams by hand. As the brand has grown, he’s had to outsource production, a move he admits was difficult for someone who likes to handle everything personally. Today, PlazaWorks works with 14-oz Japanese denim, sewn at a top-tier facility in China.
Early fans loved that Maduekwe once sewed every pair in his Parkdale apartment, but as demand grows, that’s no longer possible. At the same time, he doesn’t want locality to be the only reason people buy his product; for him, the jeans must stand alongside anything globally in terms of quality and fit. Being Canadian, he says, is “the cherry on top.” PlazaWorks is still young, but with new stock lists across the country and a healthy online business, there is a strong foundation.
Selvedge denim may have slipped from the spotlight over the past several years, but its appeal endures — especially when someone like Maduekwe reminds you why you loved it in the first place: the weight of the cloth, the promise of fades, and the quiet satisfaction of wearing something built to last.
FEATURE IMAGE BY MATS SCHRAM.
