A few years ago buying second hand clothes in Dhaka was something many people would probably keep quiet about. Nowadays, a teenager posting an Instagram story saying ‘thrifted this for Tk 300’ is hardly unusual. Thrift shopping has slowly moved from roadside markets and flea stalls into Instagram pages, Facebook groups and pop up events and young Dhaka residents are helping turn it into a proper fashion trend.
Thrifting itself is not new to Bangladesh because markets around Gausia, New Market, Gulistan and other parts of Dhaka have sold second hand or surplus clothing for years. What has changed is who is buying and how they are buying it. The modern thrift scene became especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic when young entrepreneurs began opening online stores and selling carefully selected pre-loved clothes through social media.
Instagram has probably played the biggest role in making thrift shopping feel less like ordinary second hand shopping and more like fashion. Instead of digging through piles of clothes, customers can scroll through a curated collection of vintage shirts, dresses, jeans, jackets and accessories from their phones. Many of these businesses are also run by students. A 2024 Daily Star report found young people starting thrift businesses alongside their studies with some beginning with only a few thousand taka in capital.
For students who cannot spend thousands of taka on every outfit, finding a good shirt for Tk 300 or a jacket for Tk 500 is obviously attractive. The Daily Star has noted that affordability remains one of the biggest reasons people in Bangladesh buy second hand clothes even though sustainability is often used to promote the trend.
The other attraction is that thrifting makes it easier to avoid looking exactly like everyone else. Fast fashion stores produce huge quantities of the same designs while thrift shops usually have limited quantities and sometimes only one of a particular item. Therefore young shoppers can find older styles, unusual prints and vintage pieces that are unlikely to be hanging on every other person's wardrobe. Dhaka's thrift entrepreneurs have also started targeting specific aesthetics and niches including vintage Western clothing and traditional kameez and kurtis.
There is also an environmental argument as keeping an existing shirt in someone's wardrobe for another few years means that shirt does not immediately become waste while producing fewer replacement garments can reduce demand for new resources. Bangladesh already has a huge textile and garment industry and a large informal economy exists around collecting, sorting, repairing and reselling used clothing.
