Fast fashion

Fast fashion is a business model in textile manufacturing where companies quickly create and sell clothing and footwear at affordable prices by replicating the latest fashion trends and designs using cheap and fast mass production techniques.^[1]^[2] Multinational retailers that employ the fast fashion strategy include Shein,^[3] H&M,^[4] Zara,^[5] C&A,^[6] Peacocks,^[7] Primark,^[8] ASOS,^[9] Edikted,^[10] Fashion Nova,^[11] Halara,^[12] Uniqlo,^[13]^[4] and Temu.^[14]^[15]

Fast fashion brands aim to put popular styles on the market as quickly as possible at a lower price than their competitors via optimized supply chains and quick response manufacturing methods.^[16] These retailers produce and sell products in small batches, maintain surplus manufacturing capacity to adjust production levels, use category management organization, and are able to make substantial and immediate adjustments to manufacturing based on sales.^[17] Fast fashion companies generally invest heavily in marketing, particularly via social media, using influencers and internet celebrities to promote their brand.^[14]^[18]^[19]

As of 2026, 36% of clothing purchases worldwide are of the fast fashion category.^[18] The total market size of fast fashion clothing sales is estimated at $178 billion in sales per year.^[20]

Fast fashion has been controversial since many fast fashion brands benefit from the exploitation of labour including poor pay and working conditions; produce clothing using non-biodegradable petroleum-based synthetic fibers and microplastics as well as dangerous goods including PFAS, endocrine disruptors, and carcinogens; produce excess carbon emissions and plastic pollution due to low-quality products that need frequent replacement; benefit from planned obsolescence, impulse purchases, and overconsumption; and copy designs that may violate intellectual property laws.^[15]^[21]^[22] Fast fashion companies have also been accused of greenwashing, hiding their true environmental impact. Fast fashion companies have argued that their efficient manufacturing techniques reduce overproduction, that they are working to reduce carbon emissions and the use of dangerous goods and that they purchase carbon offsets and credits, that they promote textile recycling, and that they audit supplier factories to ensure fair working conditions that are in compliance with local laws.^[23] Fast fashion companies have taken steps to reduce chemical content and increase sustainability; however, there is no consensus about what constitutes sustainable fashion. Consumers concerned about the impact of fast fashion have embraced slow fashion, zero-waste fashion, and thrifting as alternatives.

History

Before the 19th century, fashion was a laborious, time-consuming process that required sourcing raw materials like wool, cotton, or leather, weaving the natural fibers into fabric, and then fashioning the fabric into functional garments. However, the Industrial Revolution changed the world of fashion by introducing new technology like the sewing machine and textile machines.^[24]

As a result, clothes became cheaper and easier to make and buy. Localized dressmaking businesses emerged, catering to members of the middle class, and employing workroom employees along with garment workers,^[25] who worked from home for meager wages. These dress shops were early prototypes of the so-called 'sweatshops' that would become the foundation for twenty-first-century clothing production.^[26]

Fast fashion originated with utility clothing and tailors who sold mass-produced affordable suits for men. In the 1960s, companies including Inditex and Chelsea Girl attained commercial acumen, but the brand Biba endured as a fast fashion icon.^[27]

Before the popularization of the fast fashion model, the fashion industry traditionally operated on a four-season cycle, with designers working months in advance to anticipate customer preferences. However, this approach underwent a significant transformation in the 1960s and 1970s, as the younger generations began to create new trends. During this period there was still a clear distinction between luxury goods and High Street fashion.

Fast fashion grew during the late 20th century as the clothing industry adopted cheaper manufacturing techniques including more efficient supply chains, new quick response manufacturing methods, increased usage of low-cost labor from Asia, and cheaper petroleum-based synthetic fibers.

Fast fashion particularly came to the fore during the vogue for "Boho-chic" in the mid-2000s.^[28]

In the 21st century, mass consumption of clothing increased dramatically. Globally, 80 billion pieces of new clothing are purchased each year, translating to $1.2 trillion annually for the global fashion industry.

Impact

Elizabeth L. Cline's 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion was one of the first investigations into the human and environmental toll of fast fashion. The practice has also come under criticism for contributing to poor working conditions in developing countries.^[29] The Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, the deadliest garment-related accident in world history, brought more attention to the safety impact of the fast fashion industry.^[30]

Impact on health

The fast fashion industry incorporates dangerous goods into fabrics, used to preserve and increase the durability of clothes. These include dyes containing heavy metals, lead, phthalates, and per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), antimicrobial agents that promote bacterial resistance, and synthetic fibers that release microplastics and contain endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and can cause skin irritation.^[31]^[32]

Impact on the environment

The fashion industry contributes to 20% of wastewater.^[33]

Ellen MacArthur notes that a t-shirt requires over 2,000 liters of water to make.^[34]

Fast fashion accounts for around 10% of global carbon emissions and consumes large amounts of water, while processes such as dyeing and fiber production pollute waterways and release microplastics.^[35]

In 2014, journalist Elizabeth L. Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion and one of the earliest critics of fast fashion, noted that Americans purchase five times the amount of clothing than they did in 1980.^[36]

As of 2007, the U.S. imported more than 1 billion garments annually from China.^[37] In the United Kingdom, textile consumption surged by 37% from 2001 to 2005.^[38]

In 2018, global fiber production reached 107 million metric tons.^[39]

The average American household produces 70 pounds (32 kg) of textile waste every year.^[40] The residents of New York City discard around 193,000 tons of clothing and textiles, which equates to 6% of all the city's garbage.^[36]

As of 2014, the European Union generated a total of 5.8 million tons of textiles each year.^[41]

As a whole, the textile industry occupies roughly 5% of all landfill space.^[40] As of 2018, the clothing industry produced about 92 million tons of textile waste annually, much of which is burned or goes into a landfill and less than 1% of used clothing is recycled into new garments.^[42]

The clothing that is discarded into landfills is often made from non-biodegradable synthetic materials.^[43]

Pesticides and dyes are released into the environment by fashion-related operations.^[44] The growing demand for quick fashion continuously adds effluent release from the textile factories, containing both dyes and caustic solutions.^[45]

The materials used not only affect the environment in textile products, but also the workers and the people who wear the clothes. The hazardous substances affect all aspects of life and release into the environments around them.^[46]

Optoro estimates that 5 billion pounds of waste is generated through returns each year, contributing 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.^[47]

Between 2000 and 2019, fast fashion production doubled, with brands such as Zara producing 24 collections a year and H&M producing about 12 to 16 collections a year.^[48]

The fast fashion industry relies on complicated, very extensive worldwide supply chains that drive environmental degradation.^[49]

Raw materials are extracted from land that is used for intensive agricultural production. As of 2022, fast fashion contributed to 8% of all carbon emissions and 20% of all global wastewater, using about 93 billion cubic metres of water annually for manufacturing.^[50]

Garments are produced in factories, often located in low labor cost countries, and sometimes under conditions of labor exploitation.^[51] The focus of the industry on fast production and consumption cycles leads to overproduction, waste, and pollution.^[49]

Synthetic materials, such as polyester, which is manufactured from fossil fuels, contribute even more to environmental deterioration.^[52]

Moreover, 92 million tons of textile waste, disposed of in landfills or by incineration, also contributes to pollution and water body contamination with microplastics.^[53] The environmental impact of fast fashion is a serious issue that a lot of the population does not acknowledge.^[49]

Environmental impact of Shein

In 2023, Shein contributed 16.7 million total metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the air.^[54]

76% of Shein's products use polyester, a fabric that easily sheds microplastics, and only 6% of those clothing items are recycled.^[54]

Each year, the company contributes to 20% of freshwater pollution and 35% of microplastics polluted into the environment.^[55]

While Shein targets low-income communities with their low costs, the company pollutes the communities with harmful chemicals used during production in their factories.^[55]

Impact on waste and overconsumption

The cheaper prices of fast fashion typically lead to impulse purchases, resulting in a higher return rate; many of such returns are then discarded by the companies.^[56]

In 2022, fast fashion packaging was accountable for 40% of plastic waste.^[57] A recent survey found that nearly 10% of the microplastics found in the ocean occur from textile waste and discarded fashion clothing which may raise concerns going forward.^[53]

Fast fashion has led to increased dumping in Ghana, where about 40% of the second hand clothing delivered there from other countries cannot be sold or reused, and is collected by waste management services, burned or dumped in landfill.^[58]

In 2018, approximately 85% of the clothing Americans consumed, nearly 3.8 billion pounds annually, was sent to landfills as solid waste, amounting to nearly 80 pounds per American per year.^[59]

In 2018, H&M's design team began implementing 3D design, 3D sampling and digital prototyping to help cut waste.^[60] Artificial intelligence can be used to produce small garment runs for specific stores.

In contrast to modern overconsumption, fast fashion traces its roots to World War II austerity, where high design was merged with utilitarian materials.^[61] The business model of fast fashion is based on consumers' desire for new clothing to wear.^[36] In order to fulfill consumers' demand, fast fashion brands provide affordable prices and a wide range of clothing that reflects the latest trends. This ends up persuading consumers to buy more items which leads to the issue of overconsumption. Dana Thomas, author of Fashionopolis, stated that Americans spent 340 billion dollars on clothing in 2012, the year before the Rana Plaza collapse.^[16]

Planned obsolescence, which is dominant in fashion marketing where trends change often, plays a key role in overconsumption.^[62]

Fast fashion retailers sell clothing that is expected to be disposed of after being worn only a few times.^[63]

Low-quality goods make overconsumption more severe since those products have a shorter life span and need to be replaced much more often.^[64]

Legal issues

Intellectual property-related lawsuits

In many lawsuits, fast fashion brands have been accused of copying designs, sometimes creating exact replicas, of major brands such as Ralph Lauren Corporation.^[65] Shein is considered to be the most frequent infractor; over 100 intellectual property-related lawsuits have been filed against Shein since 2017.^[66]

Most such copyright lawsuits are settled confidentially. From 2019 to 2024, Shein paid $1.4 million to independent artists in settlements.^[67]

Labour concerns

Low wages

The fast fashion industry faces criticism for hiring garment workers from developing countries for their low wages. There are more than 60 million workers that produce garments for fast fashion retail, and 80 percent of those workers are women.^[68]

MVO Netherlands researched in 2019 that workers' monthly wages in Ethiopia that manufacture for H&M, Gap, and JCPenney begins at $32 (equivalent to US$105 at U.S. prices), while an experienced worker is $122 a month (or US$400 at U.S. prices).^[68]

Hence, workers' monthly income would be about $858 if they worked 40 hours a week. This is a much higher salary than in developing countries but still lower than the U.S. standard of living in income conditions. To reach the target goals of consumer demands from the U.S. and Europe, garment laborers in developing countries, on average, are expected to work 11 hours a day.^[68]

Sweatshops

The fashion industry is one of the most labor-dependent industries,^[69] as one in every six people works in acquiring raw materials and manufacturing clothing.^[35] There is an increasing concern for sweatshops as more fast fashion stores are lowering their prices and trends are fluctuating more frequently. Brands and store companies that use sweatshops are GAP, Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, and others.^[70]

In particular, H&M has faced controversial issues and backlash regarding their sweatshops in Asian countries. H&M is the largest producer of clothing, with sweatshop factories in under-developed South Asian and Southeast Asian countries like India, Bangladesh and Cambodia.^[71] 500 employees in Indonesia left their work and protested for higher pay as their pay was below the country's minimum wage. Once a strike evolved, the factory removed their access to the building and paid men to harass the workers.^[72]

In 2023, Nike received backlash over its use of sweatshops. Although the company denied it, evidence showed that 4000 Nike garment employees were not paid $2.2 million in owed wages for over three years.^[73] This accrual of unpaid wages spanned from the Violet Apparel factory in Cambodia to the Hong Seng Knitting Factory in Thailand, and many human rights organizations called Nike out on their violations against laborers.^[73]

Bangladesh, a country known for its cheap labor, is home to four million garment production workers in over 5000 factories, of which 85% are women.^[74] Many of these factories do not have proper working conditions for essential workers. In 2013 a group of garment workers protested in Bangladesh over the poor quality of the factory building. In 2013, in Dhaka District, Bangladesh, the Rana Plaza collapse killed over 1,000 workers. In addition to a structurally unsound building, the employees were overworked. Bangladesh has the lowest minimum wage of all countries exporting apparel.^[75]

Women and export processing zones

The International Labour Organization defines export processing zones as "industrial zones with special incentives set up to attract foreign investors, in which imported materials undergo some degree of processing before being re-exported".^[76] These zones have been used by developing countries to bolster foreign investment, and produce consumer goods that are labour-intensive, like clothing.^[77] Many export processing zones have been criticized for their substandard working conditions, low wages, and suspension of international and domestic labour laws.^[78]

Women account for 70–90% of the working population in some export processing zones, such as in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.^[78]^[79] Despite their overrepresentation in export processing zone informal sector employment, women are still likely to earn less than men.^[78] Mainly, this discrepancy is due to employers preferring to hire men in technical and managerial positions and women in lower-skilled production work.^[78] Moreover, employers tend to prefer hiring women for production jobs because they are seen as more compliant and less likely to join labour unions.^[76] In addition, a report that interviewed Sri Lankan women working in export processing zones found that gender-based violence "emerged as a dominant theme in their narratives".^[80] For example, 38% of women reported seeing or experiencing sexual harassment within their workplace.^[80] However, proponents of textile and garment production as a means for economic upgrading in developing countries (global value chain) have pointed out that clothing production work tends to have higher wages than other available jobs, such as agriculture or domestic service work, and therefore provides women with a larger degree of financial autonomy.^[77]

Export-processing zones (EPZs) are situated within neoliberal globalization and often recruit and rely on a feminized and flexible workforce. Hiring targets frequently include young migrant and rural women, highlighting an intersection of gender, age and migration status, where workers are then managed through surveillance, quotas and limits on collective organizing. Consequently, such a system makes women's labour central to export growth despite diminishing social protections. More documented practices experienced by workers include pregnancy testing at hiring, dismissal upon pregnancy, and curfews within employer-run dormitories, limiting autonomy and voice.^[81] From such workplace conditions to transnational supply chains, these micropolitical and macropolitical structures help explain how decision-making is made with brands and buyers outside producing communities, while social and environmental costs stay local, especially within South and Southeast Asian production zones.^[82]

Guangzhou workshops

Fast fashion company Shein produces its clothing using Guangzhou workshops in Southern China. These workshops are growing industries since they are able to produce a large amount of clothing items for cheap prices and without paying tariffs. Often going overtime and lasting more than 10 hours, an employee's working hours are fickle and unpredictable, and some workers are paid as little as US$5/hour. Employees rent small rooms above the cloth and sewing machine-filled garment factories. They sleep on bunk beds and pay US$130 per month.^[83]

Shein's supply chain functions to support the high demand for inexpensive clothing items. Because Shein produces 10,000 garments a day to maintain pace with fickle clothing trends,^[84] they do not stock up on inventory. Because about 60 percent of 18-year-olds are going to college,^[85] the amount of Chinese young people willing to work in clothing workshops has decreased, and there are fewer employees working in the Guangzhou workshops. There have been complaints from employees that their work is too taxing.^[83] During a WIRED investigation, Shein workers revealed that they often have to work 75-hour weeks in factories that lack sufficient windows or exits.^[86]