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

While the luggage universe is swept up in fast fashion and fleeting trends, Briggs & Riley resists the spin cycle. —Paula Conway, Forbes.com, 24 July 2025

The slim, skinny pant was a mainstay of wardrobes across the west in 2007 to 2018, seemingly stocked everywhere from fast fashion stores to luxury retailers. —Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 11 June 2025

The elimination of the de minimis exemption, which previously allowed low-value packages to enter the U.S. duty-free, directly increases the cost of fast fashion items from major online retailers like Shein and Temu, heavily reliant on direct-to-consumer shipments from China. —Tom Rogers, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 May 2025

Slow crafts, made with homegrown materials and by human hands, carry the maker’s essence, and hence, are far more meaningful in a modern world hyper-focused on fast fashion. —Sonya Rehman, Forbes.com, 29 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1975, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fast fashion

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