Written by your founder, Nada Alkadi, with love...
Holy Thrift was born in a café in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2015.
I was a senior in college, on the verge of graduation, making what felt like boku bucks (a whole $100) selling my going-out tops on Facebook Marketplace for some extra play money. With graduation looming, I faced a major decision: grad school or a 9-to-5?
Every time I sat down to work on grad school applications, I felt a bottomless pit in my stomach. It sounded good in theory, and grad school would definitely make my immigrant parents proud. But I couldn’t even fake the desire long enough to finish an application. That left me dragging my feet while applying to job after job, my head hanging lower with each submission.
As a recent psychology grad, my options were limited. Luckily, my roommate introduced me to her sister—Courtney Herda—who owned a small digital marketing agency in town. Courtney would go on to change the course of my career by hiring me part-time at Smarter Searches as a Social Media Manager.
To set the scene: I was fresh out of college, making $10 an hour for 25 hours a week. I had plenty of time but not much money. To supplement my income, I kept selling secondhand clothes on Facebook Marketplace.
Things started clicking quickly at work and I discovered I had a natural talent for creating engaging social media posts, analyzing website traffic, and dabbling in paid social. We were a small team of four women, working side by side in one room—learning and building together.
In those early days, I was absorbing everything I could about digital marketing, strategy, and content creation. Every day, I left work with my mind on fire, thinking: I can do this.
It ignited a sense of purpose I hadn’t even realized I was searching for. A feeling I never had in the 4 years of college when I was studying psychology.
Thus began my "I can" era: I can build a website and drive traffic to it. I can create buzz around a brand using social media. I can build something great—because it comes naturally to me.
I enjoyed the rush of making an online sale. I was consuming a lot of digital marketing videos on Youtube because I wanted to be great at my new job. The deeper I got into my new job the more I started to realize it would be smarter and more gratifying to sell my vintage finds on my own platform vs Facebook Marketplace.
I knew there were resale platforms out there but what I wanted to do was different than flip clothes. I wanted to build a brand people recognized just like the ones I was working on at my agency. I knew that wasn’t going to be possible if I listed clothing to 3rd party websites. My mind was set: I would build my own website on the side after work using all the skills I picked up on the job.
The idea to start a website was all I could talk about.
I became obsessed and I needed a name. It was at a coffee shop with my friends floating around names when it hit me. After an hour of spitballing bad ideas, I threw my hands up and said “Holy shit why is this so hard!” I paused.
Holy shit is the exact feeling that sparks when I find a good piece (later on we would refer to these as bangers). “I know! It will be called Holy Thrift.”
And so, Holythrift.com was born—like a phoenix rising from the ashes of my withered psychology degree. (Sorry, Mom & Dad.)
I started by sh*tposting pictures of Rihanna, memes, and the cute clothes I was thrifting on Instagram. Back then, the brand was just simple in-feed, single-image posts. Pre-algorithm, all I had to do was click post and vibe. My life quickly became a cycle of: build the site, thrift, list, post; thrift, improve the site, thrift, list, post.
This remained a solo venture for years—work, thrift, list.
In 2016, I moved to Oklahoma City to be with my family and figure out my next steps—because part-time work wasn’t going to build my empire. I knew I had to keep working at digital marketing agencies to learn everything I could about e-commerce.
So, I took another agency job and kept grinding: 9-5 at the agency (I called it training camp), then for my 5-9 it was thrifting, listing, and posting on social media.
Enter the Pop-Up Era
Holy Thrift came to life in Oklahoma City, and with that, something funny happened—I was getting more traffic than I knew what to do with.
Around the same time, I became obsessed with scaling—and with Sophia Amoruso and the rise of Nasty Gal. But there was one idea I couldn’t shake: she scaled by switching to a fast fashion model and ditching vintage.
I knew from the start that I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to scale while staying true to vintage and small-batch designers. I wanted to prove that mass production wasn’t the only way to grow.
As Holy Thrift’s following grew, so did its visual identity. I had built an Instagram feed that was edgy and unconventional, capturing the essence of the brand. I wanted vintage to move away from the usual 70s nostalgic groovy vibes and instead lean into a vampy vixen who goes to the night show aesthetic.
At the time, the Instagram feed was just product shots and repurposed memes—but I wanted more. I wanted to push things further and create in-house content. So, I started cold DMing girls in the city, asking if they wanted to do photoshoots. Looking back, I’m proud of how bold I was. I didn’t know anyone in OKC, but I did have statement pieces, a white wall in my bedroom, and a vision. If I styled them well, I knew the shots would turn out cool.
To my surprise, the response was amazing. I shot at least two girls a week in my room, and through that, I met so many people. These shoots didn’t just build my content—they built my community. I connected with creatives, collaborated with incredible women, and laid the foundation for Holy Thrift as a real brand.
Oklahoma City is where Holy Thrift went from a newborn to a toddler taking its first steps. And like any toddler, it even said its first word—“pop-up.”
I was meeting so many creatives—designers, artists, models—all eager to collaborate. This was my introduction to the pop-up scene. My first one happened organically, with a group of girls I met who also made clothes. The turnout was massive, and for the first time, I got to meet the people buying Holy Thrift pieces in real life. Talking to them, understanding where else they shopped, and connecting in a way that wasn’t possible through an online store was eye-opening.
After that first pop-up, I became a pop-up machine. I started throwing one after another and launched Stuff-the-Bag Sales—anything you could fit into a bag for $50. The girls loved them. They would line up outside, waiting for the doors to open so they could rush in and stuff their bags to the brim.
These pop-ups breathed new life into the business. They fueled growth in a way that Instagram posts never could—through the power of word of mouth.
Enter 2019: THE VENDOR ERA
At this point, I had the foundation—website, traffic, a loyal customer base (thank you OKC) —but I needed more product to scale. I could thrift and list 24/7, and it still wouldn’t be enough to grow past a certain point. So, I started searching for other sellers like me—well-curated, detail-oriented resellers who specialized in specialty vintage.
This was a turning point for our business. Once I had a handful of girls on board, the product selection expanded, and our customers had more sizes and styles to choose from. Scaling a vintage business model now felt possible. Holy Thrift evolved into a full-fledged marketplace, housing full-time resellers.
My career truly started when I shifted from thrift, list, post to working, coaching, and growing a team of sellers. It was far more challenging than working alone. Now, I had to fix the human errors of others, hold them accountable, and lead by example. Their success became my success.
But the deeper I got into the reselling game, the more I noticed the individualistic mindset. Everyone gatekept their suppliers (normal—that’s business), but beyond that, the industry was highly competitive, with every seller looking out for themselves. Good tips, effective strategies—no one shared them. It was a culture of secrecy, and to me, that was the opposite of scaling.
The sad truth about vintage reselling? It’s too easy to burn out. It’s lonely. You spend all day in your room, shooting clothes and listing them. No coworkers. No one to bounce ideas off. One week, you sell a ton. The next? Nothing. No one truly understands the plight of a reseller—except another reseller. And yet, in this industry, your only real peers are also your fiercest competition.
This is why so many of our favorites leave vintage behind. It’s grueling, mentally exhausting work. You tie your self-worth to your sales, and when those sales dip, it’s hard not to feel like you’re failing.
Enter the Team Era
Holy Thrift has been around for a while, but it wasn’t always as fully realized as it is now. Yes, I started it—but I owe so much of its growth to the women I met along the way. The ones who saw what I was building and said, Hey, I believe in this. I see your vision. Let me join you and help.
What started as the I can era evolved into the we can era. And as a team, we realized the power of working together toward a common goal. Beyond just having more products, we now had more perspectives, more skill sets, and a shared mission: to scale our small businesses, make a full-time income, and gain independence.
We had to sit down and define what sets us apart from the countless other reselling marketplaces. Our answer? We invest in our sellers. We offer resources, support, data, and ongoing feedback—things we wished we had when we started.
We don’t just bring people on and let them list into oblivion. We hire sellers we want to work with closely and help grow. We analyze sales data to refine their buying strategies, helping them focus on what works. If someone is struggling, we don’t leave them behind—we hop on a call, offer personalized coaching, and help them boost their sales. The team meets once a month to talk big picture, and some of our best company ideas have come from those chats.
Holy Thrift is a group project, and our goal is for every seller on the site to be an A player—or actively working toward it. That’s why we keep our team small. Unlike other marketplaces, you can’t just open an account and start listing. You have to be interviewed and vetted, just like any other job.
Long story short—we stop at nothing to help our team succeed, and we hold a high standard.
What Makes Us Different for Our Customers?
We exist for the girls who want to shop iconic vintage and small-batch brands but have no idea where to start. Other marketplaces can feel overwhelming—endless scrolling, uncurated selections, and way too much time wasted before finding the piece. We bring it all to one place, constantly refreshing our new arrivals with the latest gems we’ve scoured the earth to find.
And we really mean that—we have an international team sourcing from Canada, France, the UK, and Australia. Limiting ourselves to domestic finds would be a disservice. There are too many treasures across the pond.
One of our catchphrases is "bangers only"—and that’s exactly what we stock the site with.
But Holy Thrift isn’t just a one-stop shop for the most interesting pieces around—we’re also a hub for people who love, sell, and buy vintage. We’re for the girls who love shopping small, discovering underground designers before they hit the mainstream, and staying ahead of the curve. If you like to be in the know before everyone else, holythrift.com is for you.
And you don’t have to be a buyer or a seller to be part of this space. Tune in to Holy Blog, where we break down all things fashion, astrology, and whatever else is inspiring our writer’s room that week. This is a place where we celebrate girlhood in all its forms.
It’s more than clothes. Holy Thrift is the digital manifestation of 25 young women’s dreams—to work in fashion and change the industry for the better.
Our mission? To make buying vintage and small-batch independent brands as seamless as shopping fast fashion. That’s why we invest so much into app and web development—so that when you find us, you experience the ease, clarity, and selection of a big-box retailer, without the mass production.
With a team of over 25, our range of styles is unmatched. So when it’s time to elevate your wardrobe—you know exactly where to shop.
So who the f*ck are we?
Holy Thrift is a collective of the best vintage sellers and independent designers, working together to redefine the secondhand fashion industry. In a space driven by competition and gatekeeping, we flip the script—collaborating, sharing resources, and scaling sustainably.
We’re creating the blueprint for how to grow a one-of-one and small batch clothing business without resorting to mass production. Our model puts interdependency over isolation, proving that success in vintage reselling isn’t just possible—it’s scalable.
We’re not only a marketplace—we’re a movement. We’re the first group of resellers and independent designers to create a hub of information where we openly discuss what it means to be in the fashion industry (and beyond) on our blog. From business insights to sustainability, we’re committed to freely sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.
Our mission is fueled by the belief that vintage fashion is unmatched—not just in style, but in its impact. With enough clothing on the planet to dress the next six generations, keeping clothes in circulation isn’t just a choice, it’s a responsibility.
Simply put: they just don’t make ’em like they used to.
We’re here to disrupt the industry, reshape the future of independent fashion, and build our legacy.