Fast fashion is a term coined to describe a surge in businesses rapidly producing inexpensive articles of clothing to meet constant new trends. Fast fashion started when companies, like Zara and H&M, realized they could quickly produce low quality pieces of clothing in just a few days to meet whatever the fashion trend was.

Clothing has started to lose quality and contribute to labor issues and environmental factors, all because a few companies saw the opportunity to produce cheap shirts to match media trends. Yes, social media has led to rapid changes and an increase in fashion trends. However, it also has contributed to even more issues than people first think of.

Fast fashion goes hand in hand with overconsumption. According to the Public Interest Research Group, the average American in 2024 bought around 53 new items of clothing, four times as much as in the year 2000. Americans also don’t wear 50 percent of their closets, and as a whole will throw out 17 million tons of clothing each year.

The most upsetting and overlooked aspect of all of this is the decline of fashion. In the past people could associate a certain style of clothing with each decade, now there is a certain style for every year. Moreover, everyone dresses the same. Within certain aesthetics: clean girl, dark academia and downtown grunge, every item and style of clothing looks the same.

In the end, fast fashion has forever changed the world and in most ways negatively. As more people start to focus on the issue and major stores, like Forever 21, go out of business, the end of this wasteful era may be coming.