Bangladesh has spent decades clothing the world. As one of the largest garment-exporting countries, its factories produce millions of garments every year. Yet behind that success lies another growing reality: textile waste. As fast fashion encourages consumers to buy more and discard clothes sooner, perfectly wearable garments are increasingly ending up forgotten in wardrobes or thrown away, adding to environmental challenges and unnecessary demand for new production.
For Adila Tasbi Labiba, that growing problem became the inspiration for building something entirely different.
Raised in a family that valued entrepreneurship and independence, Adila grew up believing that building something of her own was always possible. Her father, a doctor and hospital business owner, inspired her entrepreneurial mindset, while her mother consistently taught her that financial independence is essential for every woman. Although many expected her to one day take over her father’s business, Adila knew her passion lay elsewhere.
Fashion had always been that passion.
She studied computer science and engineering at Independent University, Bangladesh, before completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. While her education gave her technical knowledge, her ambition had always been to build a business in the fashion industry.
That dream became reality in 2022 with the launch of Thrift Kameez, a small Instagram page dedicated to giving pre-loved salwar kameezes a second life. At a time when Bangladesh already had thriving thrift pages for Western wear, Adila noticed there was no dedicated platform for traditional wear. The response was overwhelming.
Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the page grew rapidly, attracting more than 47,000 followers and creating a vibrant community of buyers.
As the business expanded, one question kept appearing in her inbox.
Can I sell my own clothes through your page?
Unfortunately, the answer was always no.
Running a traditional thrift business meant purchasing, storing, photographing, and managing every piece of inventory herself. It simply wasn’t possible to buy clothes from hundreds of customers.
Instead of seeing that as a limitation, Adila saw an opportunity.
“The purpose of thrifting isn’t simply to make people buy secondhand clothes,” she says. “It’s about giving clothes a longer life and reducing fashion waste. Even if someone buys a dress from my thrift page, eventually that dress may become old, outgrown, or unloved. Then what happens to it?
“My goal isn’t for people to buy only from me. My goal is to create a system where people can continue reselling those same clothes again and again, allowing garments to move from one owner to another instead of sitting unused in wardrobes or ending up as waste.”
That idea became Thrift Market.
Founded by Adila, Thrift Market is a dedicated peer-to-peer fashion resale marketplace where buyers and sellers exist within the same ecosystem. Instead of operating as a conventional thrift store that buys and resells clothing, the platform enables individuals to list their own pre-loved garments for sale. Someone who purchases a dress today can later return to the platform and sell that same dress again, extending its lifespan far beyond what a traditional one-way resale model allows.
To the best of the founders’ research, Thrift Market is among Bangladesh’s first dedicated platforms built entirely around fashion resale. Inspired by global marketplaces such as Depop but designed specifically for Bangladeshi consumers, the platform aims to make circular fashion simple, accessible, and trustworthy.
Adila leads the company’s vision, branding, and business strategy, while her husband and co-founder, Sunjar Ibn Masud, played a key role in helping build the website and mobile platform. The technical team is led by Imtiaz Islam, founder of RSI Labs, who serves as chief technology officer. The company is also supported by two student employees: Abdullah Ibn Masud, who provides technical support, and Syeda Sara, who manages customer support. As the company grows, Adila hopes to create more employment opportunities for students, enabling them to gain valuable work experience while continuing their education.
Behind the business is also a family that believed in Adila’s dream from the very beginning.
“My husband never treated my ambitions as secondary after marriage,” Adila says. “Instead, he encouraged me to pursue them and helped turn my vision into reality.”
That support extended throughout the family. Today, her father-in-law manages stock inventory while her mother-in-law helps oversee packaging and order preparation. What began as one woman’s vision has become a family-built business, with everyone contributing to its growth.
The platform itself has been designed to make fashion resale both convenient and trustworthy. Sellers can create their own stores, list clothing, and have items collected directly from their homes through integrated delivery services, while buyers gain access to a constantly changing marketplace of affordable, pre-loved fashion. Every listing is reviewed before publication to help maintain quality and transparency.
For Adila, however, the technology is only a means to achieve something much larger.
She believes Bangladesh’s position as one of the world’s largest garment producers also brings a responsibility to think differently about how clothes are consumed after they are made. Every garment that remains in circulation for another owner is one less garment discarded prematurely and one less purchase that requires new production.
Thrift Market, she says, was never built simply to sell more clothes.
It was built to help clothes live longer.
In a country that manufactures fashion for millions around the world, Adila hopes Bangladesh can also become a leader in giving those garments a second, third, and even fourth life -- moving fashion away from a culture of disposal and toward one of reuse, sustainability, and circularity.
Thrift Market is available for download on both Android and iOS:
Android (Google Play)
iOS (App Store)