Inspires Women to Pursue Their Own Victories

Paige Callaway is the designer, creator, and founder behind the two functional fit garment brands, Pursue Victory and Paige 1912. She hails from outside of Calgary, AB, where she grew up participating in 4H and high school rodeo. From a young age, it was clear that she was a motivated go-getter, making and selling jewelry and tying rope halters to pay for rodeo entrance fees. Always into fashion, she beaded western shirts and altered her jeans to have something unique to ride in for competitions. She eventually turned her lifelong love for fashion and ambitious drive into a career helping women feel their best by manufacturing western-style shirts that fit the female figure's unique sizing nuances. 

"I always had a bit of a knack for it," she says.

“I would make my hair scrunchies and bedazzle my jeans; I used to change my outfit a dozen times a day. I was a business-oriented kid; as soon as I received my learner's license to drive, I bought my vehicle with the money I had saved so I could be self-sufficient." 

Paige grew up in the cattle world, with one set of her grandparents owning and running a large ranch and the other raising dairy cows. Her parents published the Angus World Magazine. By the time she started 4H at the age of nine, Paige was helping her grandfather move cattle on horseback and felt at home on and around horses. Her love for all things equine evolved and expanded from there, rodeoing through both high school and college and even competing as a professional trick rider. 

"I always liked showing horses,"she says, "but I was never impressed with horse showing in that I didn't want to be subject to a judge for the rest of my life. I liked rodeo because it put the control back in my hands." 

Paige's grandfather, Bob Fullerton, was one of the most influential people in her life during her younger years. His character impacted her so much that it still influences how she runs her business and the values she upholds. 

"Grandpa was the cowboy of cowboys," she says. "He was a true gentleman and a true cowboy, and being his sidekick at a young age had a huge impact on me—the way he treated people, his integrity, it was a way of life I respected. It's part of why I've established my community around that western way of life—it's not just about cattle and horses, but about the type of people it breeds. Part of it is the first-hand experience of relying on animals and having your life subject to nature—it's very humbling."

Paige attended Odessa College on a rodeo scholarship for two years, then finished her communications and technical writing degree at Tarleton State University in 2009. "My goal at that time in my life was to build a career around traveling, writing, and training and rodeoing horses," she says.  

In 2012, Paige found herself back in Calgary, working sales for an oil and gas company. It was a good job, but not one that fed her passion. At the same time, a friend told her about a couturier school, Ecole Holt Couture, School of Sewing and Design. Having struggled personally throughout her life to find clothing that fit well, she had in the back of her head that she wanted to build well-fitting garments for women. 

"It was specifically difficult to find western-style button-down shirts that fit me properly," says Paige. "I wanted something comfortable that moved with my body while I worked, roped, and rode. It felt impossible to find that." 

A friend approached her about applying for the couturier school, and she started crying. "I knew that I had to make a change in what I was doing—my heart just wasn't in it, but I knew it was going to be hard to leave the comfort of the path I was on." The application process for the course was extensive, and Paige was surprised to be selected as one of four students.

Couturier is a prestigious and niche market, and the class and its teachings were structured, systematic, and extremely rigorous. Couturier makes up about one percent of the fashion industry, and the clothing that comes from it is exclusive to wealthy clients. In her first year of school, Paige learned to create a garment that fit her body perfectly. "We took about 70 different measurements, drafted a pattern, did two or three fittings, and sewed it," she says. "We were taught to fit a blouse and hang a sleeve properly, and I realized that nobody in the western industry was doing things this way. I grew up rodeoing in shirts that came untucked and gaped in the bust." 

After the first year of the four-year program, Paige decided she had learned enough to branch out independently and start a business. She wasn't interested in creating garments for the one percent. Instead, she wanted to share her skills with other women who had never experienced the comfort of clothing that fit well. 

What Paige realized when she wore the clothing she had designed and fitted to her own body was not simply how much more comfortable she was but how much more confidence she had. "The difference I felt when wearing the garments I'd built to fit my body properly was astonishing," she says. "If people were to get dressed in the morning and feel good, how much would that change their day? I wanted to create both functional garments and make women feel confident no matter what they were doing, whether it was being a mom, branding cattle, or competing in rodeo."

In 2014, Paige launched Pursue Victory, designing and manufacturing solid-colored shirts with a functional fit that focused on performance. The goal was to produce shirts that fit the individual perfectly. 

"I did my own size-grading," she says." I started by grading the perfect shirt for myself. I'm generally a size medium, but I added sizes in between instead of creating a small, medium, and large system. Her sizing is based on the concept that most women, when moving from a size small to medium and medium to large, don't need their shirts to be larger everywhere but taken out in the bodice and the shoulders. 

"People, especially women, think there's something wrong with their bodies when clothes don't fit correctly," she says.

"The problem is that corners are cut to save money, or sewers make mistakes, and it has nothing to do with us personally." 

Instead of leaning on generic sizing used by much of the fashion industry, Paige sizes her blouses from 12HH-17HH. It's a nod to "hands high," the term used for measuring horses. "The idea was to use sizing that has a positive connotation for women instead of a negative one," she says. Her shirts are generally longer in the bodice and arms for better mobility, and her fit guide includes shoulder-to-shoulder, back center to hemline, bust, and side seam measurements. "It's important that the shirt fits well in the shoulders," she explains. "If a shirt fits in the shoulders, it should fit everywhere else."

In 2021, Paige opened a micro-factory in Stavely, Alberta, where her shirts are dreamt up, designed, and sewn. Most clothing in the United States is manufactured overseas, but Paige wanted to keep her business as close to home as possible and to hire local sewers. Her shirts are all ethically manufactured and sewn by rural southern Alberta women. 

The micro-factory has also furthered Paige's pursuit of environmentally and socially conscious garment production. 

"Our society is traditionally based on consumerism and fast fashion," she says. "We need more awareness around the environmental impact on both ends of clothing manufacturing and its effects on the workforce. As a society, I believe we are finally turning a corner and becoming more conscious as spenders." 

In 2016, Paige was itching to expand into more creative designs and launched a sister brand to Pursue Victory called Paige 1912. "Paige 1912 has a different vibe and feel than Pursue Victory," she says. "It's the same functional fit, but with more of a high fashion meets western world flare." The designs for her second brand are inspired by the female trick and bronc riders from the 1900s. Paige 1912 shirts stand out with bright colors, patterns, and unique details.

These days, Paige is back on the road competing in rodeos. When she's not actively running her two businesses, she and her husband raise and train a growing horse herd together. As for Pursue Victory and Paige 1912, she has moved the two businesses under one name: Functional Fit Foundry and is planning to expand each product line. She hopes to share her Micro Factory manual with other brands looking to move their manufacturing back to North America.