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Noihsaf Bazaar – A Secondhand Online Boutique, Not a Resale Abyss
Kate Lindello started selling her own clothes on Instagram in 2013, while home with a new baby. Thirteen years on, every item on Noihsaf is still reviewed by a human.
Noihsaf Bazaar is a curated secondhand platform built around independent designers, small labels, and vintage. No fast fashion, no mass-market brands, and every submission is still reviewed by one of Noihsaf employees before it goes live.
(The name Noihsaf is the word fashion backwards – as you might have already guessed.)
”Noihsaf started in 2013 as a very scrappy Instagram account. I was home with a new baby, going through my closet and selling things I loved but wasn’t wearing. Other people started asking me to sell their things, and before I knew it I was spending hours every day manually curating clothing and posting it to Instagram. We grew because people really wanted what we were offering and couldn’t find it anywhere else.”
Hayley Small has been buying and selling on Noihsaf since those Instagram days. “We used to comment our zip codes under a post to claim an item, first come first serve,” she says. “Sometimes multiple people commented within seconds of the post going up. I loved that era, the adrenaline. Honestly, sometimes I still sell an item within five minutes of it going live and it gives me the same rush.” Her other favourite thing about the site is less romantic: “Measurements are required. Thank you!”
That organic beginning still shapes how Noihsaf operates, Kate says.
“Noihsaf was born from the idea that we all own items with a story to tell, and that some of them deserve a home where that story can continue. I wanted a boutique-like experience focused on smaller brands and independent designers – an alternative to the resale sites that accept anything and everything. Over time it grew to include vintage, home goods and children‘s items, but everything submitted is still reviewed before it goes live.”
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Kate says they don’t try to be everything to everyone. “The result feels much more like a really good independent boutique or vintage shop than a giant resale abyss. The brands that do well here are smaller lines – Babaà, Rudy Jude, Rachel Comey. They’re small-batch designs made with quality materials, so they hold up better than the mass-produced garments that have taken over. Vintage does really well too, because our curators take the time to make sure items are actually vintage and not just pieces that look vintage.”
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“Noihsaf is unadulterated fun and impeccably curated while celebrating independent design,” says Melissa Goldstein, cofounder of Mother Tongue Magazine. “It honestly makes you feel good about shopping.” Her best find so far: “an incredible pair of vintage eggplant-purple taffeta pants, the likes of which I’ve never seen before and doubt I’ll see again.”
Noihsaf was never set out to be the biggest resale marketplace, and that has probably been the key to their success. “We’ve been willing to grow slowly. When we moved beyond Instagram, we spent years working out what people actually needed before building our own platform. We didn’t have VC money pushing us toward a particular growth trajectory, so we could make decisions based on what made sense for Noihsaf rather than what looked impressive on a spreadsheet. We can keep a personal relationship with the people who use the site. Our business has grown because the community has grown with us.”
That’s part of the appeal for Caroline Albers, who grew up thrifting in Minnesota and calls Noihsaf “the best secondhand shop on the internet.”
“I love knowing it’s run by a real woman who’s creative and has a great sense of humour,” she says. “There is life and liveliness behind it.” It’s also, she admits, “a tab I always have open on my computer.”
“There’s something to be said for having a very specific point of view. There are plenty of places to sell a pair of leggings or a Zara dress. Noihsaf is for the person looking for that Babaà sweater, the weird vintage dress, the Ilana Kohn jumpsuit, or a designer they haven’t heard of yet. We’re not trying to win the volume game. We’re trying to be the place where you know you’ll find something good”, Kate says.
Ilana Kohn – whose label is one of the names Kate reaches for – has been shopping the site since the blogspot days, back when the first comment got to buy. “I love how they’re more than a resale platform,” she says. “I would never in a million years spend time browsing Depop or The RealReal. But with Noihsaf there’s an element of discovery that other platforms absolutely do not have.” Her own finds include a hoodie for her husband “that he never takes off” and Babaà trousers she wears to death every autumn.
Not surprisingly, Kate’s favorite part of Noihsaf is the people.
”Meeting the ones who have supported us since day one always feels like a full-circle moment – we exist because our buyers and sellers believe in what we’re doing, and meeting them in person makes that belief tangible. That’s why the pop-ups and dinners matter so much to me. We get to step away from the screens, sit around a table, break bread, and actually meet the people who make Noihsaf what it is.
I also love hearing about the friendships that have come out of the platform. There are so many stories where an article of clothing was the unlikely beginning of a friendship that lasted years, or even a decade. It’s funny to think about a resale transaction becoming something much bigger than the transaction itself.”
Kate once bought a Steven Alan blouse from a woman in DC, and a few years later she ended up sleeping in her guest room when she was in town for the 2017 Women’s March. ”I met my daughter’s dentist because I sold her a pair of jeans. You really never know where a pair of pants will take you.”
“Noihsaf is technically a resale platform, but the clothes are really just the vehicle. The stories, the relationships and the community that form around them are the thing,” Kate says.
Maggy Moran bought her first designer shoes here while she was in grad school: classic Gucci Horsebit loafers, worn to defend her master's thesis in 2020.
“They were very well loved, but they let me buy a classic piece in my price range,” she says. She has since had them resoled, to keep them for good. A few years later the Noihsaf team asked her to sell pieces from her own shop at their first in-person event, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. “It was like being recognised by your favourite celebrity. We ate amazing food, swam in the river on a hot summer night, and danced at a dive bar until early morning. That trip was the start of an amazing friendship.”
Find with Gem
one size purple and white dress- green beanie
- purple sweater
- black women’s blazer
- Rachel Comey sandals
- green striped shirt
- black Rachel Comey Fond sweatshirt
- taffeta pants
- eggplant purple
- J. Crew midi skirt
- denim shirt dress
- long grey puff coat
- striped polo dress
- peach colored jeans
- Steven Alan blouse
- purple tie-dye
- light green maxi dress
- red cowboy boots