In Singapore’s crowded landscape of earnest sustainability pitches, Swapaholic’s was the result of a personal transformation. Founder Priyanka Sachdev Shahra, 40, confessed she was once “a textbook fast-fashion addict,” the kind who treated parcels as personality. When she learned that fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries, she felt “ashamed that I’d been fuelling it unknowingly.” That shame ignited a spark and eventually, a brand – Swapaholic.
Swapaholic, now a Certified B Corporation (a company verified to meet high standards of environmental performance, transparency, and legal accountability), functions like a community closet with infrastructure. It lets people swap, sell, or buy curated pre-loved fashion while dismantling the idea that novelty must require newness.
“The world didn’t need another fashion brand,” Ms Priyanka realised during graduate research in India. “It needed a smarter way to circulate what already exists.”
That insight evolved into Swapaholic, which Ms Priyanka and her team built from scratch, with inventory systems, front-end platforms, the works, because nothing off-the-shelf could support a swap-driven circular economy. The complexity, she said, ironically, brought clarity. “Every obstacle forced us to innovate.”
Ms Priyanka grew up in a traditional Asian household where care work was expected of women. As she stepped into the corporate world, she saw those same traits as an asset. “Empathy, patience and care are just as valuable in the workplace,” she said. Her version of leadership balances structure with softness, partly inherited from a grandfather who gave her The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as bedtime reading and encouraged her to keep a “dream journal”.
The impact of Swapaholic goes beyond environmental metrics, though each swap offsets an average of 7.9 kilograms of carbon emissions. It also creates flexible employment opportunities for women from financially challenged backgrounds, and it keeps consumption local, human, and circular.
Ms Priyanka said that the stories that emerge from this ecosystem are what keep her anchored. She recalled one woman who swapped in her wedding gown, only for another woman to fall in love with it and wear it for her own ceremony. “We were circulating stories and memories”
This year, Swapaholic is turning “fashion into compassion” through a collaboration with Young Hearts, a charity initiative by the Red Cross Singapore, aimed at raising funds and awareness.
In addition to her work at Swapaholic, Ms Priyanka is also the founder of DinoStaury, a social enterprise focused on children’s values-based education. Balancing life as a founder, mother of twin daughters, and entrepreneur is no easy feat, she said. “Some days the balance feels perfect. On others, I’m just trying to keep it all together,” she admitted. However, she hopes her daughters will see the bigger picture: that building something meaningful is an act of devotion.
Swapaholic is already developing digital tools that make swapping frictionless and borderless. But she measures growth differently. “When someone says, ‘I’ve started swapping instead of shopping,’ that’s the real win.” After 15 years in entrepreneurship, Ms Priyanka resists the myth of mastery. “I still don’t have it all figured out,” she said. Her advice to the next generation of purpose-driven women is: “Don’t chase perfection, chase authenticity.”
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27 Nov 2025 14:10
