Sabin Bhandari
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Nepal's first online custom t-shirt store

Threadpaints

Threadpaints

Overview

Threadpaints, a brand of Whitespace Pvt Ltd, started in 2012 as Nepal's first online custom t-shirt store and grew into the country's only fashion marketplace, hosting 40+ local and international brands with free home delivery nationwide. I led the creative department — branding, print design, web design and marketing.

Roles

Co-founder
Creative Director

Timeline

Dec 2012 - Dec 2018

Recognition

Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia-Pacific in Retail & E-commerce

Stats (as of 2025)

40+

Brands on platform

2012

Established

Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017)

Recognition

The Idea

Threadpaints began in 2012 when three engineering students — Aashish Acharya, Aayush Shrestha and myself — decided to put custom-designed graphic tees online at a time when e-commerce barely existed in Nepal. Our first products were a single line of original t-shirts built around socio-cultural and contemporary Nepali themes. We were the first online store in the country to offer free home delivery nationwide, which made buying online feel safe to a market that had never done it before.

Threadpaints — online t-shirt store

My Role

I co-founded Threadpaints and ran its creative department for six years. That meant owning the brand from the ground up: the visual identity, every t-shirt graphic and print design, the web store's design, photography direction, and the marketing that carried it. As the catalogue and the company grew, my job shifted from designing products to designing a consistent brand system that 40+ partner labels could live inside.

Founders illustration Shopping so easy campaign

What We Built

What started as a one-product custom-tee shop went through years of "ups and downs, learnings and pivots." We expanded from custom t-shirts into hoodies, jerseys and jackets, then into a full apparel range for men and women. Over time Threadpaints transformed from a single brand into Nepal's only fashion marketplace — a curated platform carrying 40+ local and international brands under one roof, all backed by the free nationwide delivery that became our signature.

In 2015, when the earthquake hit Nepal, we used the platform for good and launched a "T-shirts for Relief" campaign, channelling sales into relief efforts.

Impact

Threadpaints became one of the most loved homegrown apparel brands in Nepal and an early proof point that e-commerce could work in the local market. In 2017, the work earned Aashish and me a place on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in Retail & E-commerce — among the first Nepali entrepreneurs to be recognised on the list.

Media Coverage