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

Could more expensive fast fashion actually lead to more sustainable consumer behaviour? —Zoe Bayliss Wong, Forbes.com, 30 Apr. 2025

More than 350 Forever 21 stores are expected to be closed by the start of May, following the fast fashion company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in March. —Greta Cross, USA Today, 30 Apr. 2025

Though fast fashion and fleeting trends make up much of today’s fashion landscape, Hill remains committed to a slower, sharper vision. —Shelton Boyd-Griffith, Vogue, 25 Apr. 2025

Keeping up with the latest trends has never been easier, thanks to fast fashion. —Robyn Merrett, StyleCaster, 18 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1975, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fast fashion

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