One of the splendid things about life in Bangladesh is having clothes tailor-made.
You can select every detail of the clothing and they can make it for you (or better yet, give the tailor a sample to copy). Or if you want to be on the cusp of fashion, you can shop from a fashion designer.
Buy the cloth. Let them tell you how much you’ll need. Take the cloth home and wash it to allow for shrinking. Buy decorations, edging, trim which is called “ribbon” here.
Take to your favorite tailor and have them sew it for it. If you take a sample of something you would like copied or a print out from the computer, the tailors will have an easier time of copying your design. Some can turn it around in a week. Others take four. Keep trying out different tailors or stick to one that you like. It costs (for an expat/foreigner) about 600 Taka ($8) for the tailoring. The cost of the cloth depends on what you buy. For a business style shirt (like at Banana Republic or Ann Taylor) of high grade cotton from India, it would cost around 800 Taka ($10) for the material itself.
So, economically speaking, you can buy cheaper clothes (even here) ready made. But it’s much more fun to design the clothes yourself!
In another posting, I will show more of what expats are wearing here in Dhaka.