fast fashion

noun

|Updated on: 20 Aug 2018

Definition of fast fashion

: 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

Recent Examples of fast fashion from the Web

Today, the fashion landscape could not be anymore different with large fast fashion chains now incorporating sustainable lines into their range.

— kerry pieri, Harper's BAZAAR, "4 Chic Fashion Brands Doing Things Right, Right Now," 2 July 2018
June 2015: $40 Million Discrimination Suit After firing the only corporate attorney for Zara’s U.S. and Canadian business, the fast fashion company was met with a $40 million discrimination suit in New York’s Supreme Court.

— carson kessler, Fortune, "Melania Trump's Jacket Is Just the Controversial Clothing by Zara. Here's a Timeline of the Rest," 22 June 2018
And now, a new study from ThredUp says consignment and thrift shopping could outpace fast fashion by 2027.

— sarah spellings, The Cut, "Could Resale Shopping Overtake Fast Fashion?," 3 Apr. 2018
Firth, creative director and founder of Eco-Age, has long been a champion of sustainable fashion practices and worked with director Andrew Morgan on The True Cost, the documentary exploring fast fashion.

— edward barsamian, Vogue, "Livia Firth and Eco-Age Host a Conversation on Sustainable Fashion, With a Film on Tasmania Wool Farming," 5 May 2018
Fashion activists have increasingly been calling for better wages and working conditions for the people who make our clothes, especially as fast fashion continues widen the gap between production and consumption.

— sarah spellings, The Cut, "Wouldn’t You Pay an Extra 20 Cents for an Ethically Made Shirt?," 19 June 2018
This season, their freedom to expend hours and hours of work into the creation of one artful garment (which will likely only be worn once, on the runway) provided a respite from our faster-than-fast fashion society.

— peter ash lee, The Cut, "Couture, Simplified," 2 May 2018
Between the fast fashion cycles creating an excess of stock which turns into waste, to the harmful chemicals used in the manufacturing process, something needs to be done.

— alyssa hardy, Teen Vogue, "These Brands Are Offering Sustainable Clothing Just in Time For Earth Day," 21 Apr. 2018
These companies aren’t out to nail trends, as the fast fashion manufacturers of past decades did, but rather to sell an all-encompassing clothing system through which consumers are meant to live.

— kyle chayka, The New Republic, "How Tech Is Remaking Fashion in Its Image," 9 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fast fashion.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.