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

By doing this, the brand is combatting the harms of fast fashion by rebalancing the carbon cycle, improving soil health, protecting watersheds, and supporting American farmer livelihoods. —Kelsey Glennon, Travel + Leisure, 1 Dec. 2024

Spanish fast fashion brand Mango is also expected to open on the Mag Mile, CoStar reported. —Carrie Shepherd, Axios, 30 Oct. 2024

Noting that Perrigo has been a champion against fast fashion practices in production and their negative impact on the environment, Watson explained that this collection used every yard of fabric and opted to underproduce garments if there was even a chance of raw materials wastage or overages. —Kanika Talwar, WWD, 23 Oct. 2024

Their devotees are style-conscious individuals who don’t want to compromise on taste, prefer slow to fast fashion, and gravitate toward minimalism. —Madeline Fass, Vogue, 26 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1975, in the meaning defined above