On a bustling Dhaka street full of buyers looking for deals on export rejects and designer fakes, a flight of stairs leads up to an anomaly in a country known for producing international clothing brands - a global high street fashion store.
Uniqlo, owned by Japan’s Fast Retailing, is opening two stores in Bangladesh, a favourite low-cost sourcing hub for many international retailers but a country where, until now, they have not sold their clothes.
Inside the brightly lit confines of the larger of Uniqlo’s two Dhaka stores, staff frantically rushed among stacks of clothing manufactured exclusively for the local market to add the final touches before a grand opening on Friday.
The Japanese retailer, in a tie-up with Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, founded by Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus, has dared to venture into a US$70 billion retail market untouched by global chains, where about 30 million people make up the middle-income bracket.
In April, more than 1,100 garment workers died in the collapse of a eight-story building in Bangladesh, putting pressure on international fashion brands to improve worker safety and livelihoods.
At 1,000 sq ft (90 sq metres), the Dhaka store is a far cry from Uniqlo’s large-format shops elsewhere and stocks mostly menswear - women in Bangladesh, a largely Muslim nation, still prefer to wear traditional clothes.