fast fashion

noun

: an approach to the design, creation, and marketing of clothing fashions that emphasizes making fashion trends quickly and cheaply available to consumers

For many shoppers, Primark has an irresistible offer: trendy clothes at astonishingly low prices. The result is a new and even faster kind of fast fashion, which encourages consumers to buy heaps of items, discard them after a few wears and then come back for another batch of new outfits.

—The Economist

Competition is fierce at every end of the fashion spectrum from luxury to fast fashion.

—Nedra Rhone

In 1985, we bought roughly 31 clothing items per year; now [in 2012] we snap up twice that many thanks to "fast fashion."

—Azeen Ghorayshi

—usually hyphenated when used before another noun

fast-fashion chains/retailers

Examples of fast fashion in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That marks the legacy of fast fashion, as originally invented by H&M and Zara, and then turbocharged by Shein and Temu. —Felix Salmon, Axios, 18 Mar. 2025

At the outset of this decade, as fast fashion and TikTok converged, the trend cycle started to move very fast indeed. —Constance Grady, Vox, 6 Mar. 2025

Today, fast fashion in the U.S. has been swamped with competition from Chinese e-commerce companies such as Temu and Shein, which produce and sell items for pennies. —Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register, 5 Mar. 2025

Now the fast fashion retailer is reported to be filing for a second bankruptcy that could shutter some 200 stores and potentially put the rest of its 150 stores up for sale. —Zoya Hasan, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1975, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fast fashion

• compassion
• ashen
• passion
• ration
• aurignacian
• internation