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

There is also an effort underway to explain the value of quality fashion compared to fast fashion. —Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 17 Oct. 2025

And according to 2023 data from the United Nations Environment Program, the fashion industry contributes to 10 percent of global emissions each year, much of which are generated by the proliferation of fast fashion. —Jennifer Bringle, Sourcing Journal, 14 Oct. 2025

Across sectors from heavy industry to fast fashion, corporate lobbying continues to resist reforms such as tougher building codes, plastics treaties, and textile standards. —Felicia Jackson, Forbes.com, 17 Sep. 2025

Many of these items are fast fashion—made quickly, sold cheaply, and in style for too short a time because the industry relies on novelty to keep consumers buying. —The Editors, Scientific American, 16 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1975, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fast fashion

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