You can kind of feel it, can’t you? That weird drop in the air. Not temperature but vibe. Fast fashion isn’t quite hitting like it used to.
The Shein hauls aren’t going viral anymore. Boohoo’s profits have tanked again. Missguided went bust and got bought for scraps. And suddenly, the same influencers who built entire careers on PLT discount codes are rebranding as “slow fashion girlies” and launching Depop edits in the same breath.
It’s giving... collapse. But also, caution.
Because on the surface, it looks like fast fashion is falling apart. Boohoo’s market value has nosedived by over 80% since 2020. Shein’s IPO keeps getting delayed (and dragged). H&M is getting sued by watchdogs in the US and Europe for greenwashing. And ASOS. Oh ASOS. Bless them, recently reported a 14% drop in sales and blamed “unseasonal weather,” which honestly just sounds like code for “Gen Z isn’t buying our beige basics anymore.”
But here’s the thing: fast fashion isn’t dying. It’s shapeshifting.
The industry’s getting called out more, yes. But it’s also getting better at dodging accountability. Where once they relied on obvious overconsumption (haul culture, 10-minute drops, influencer gifting on steroids), now they’re trying subtler tactics: launching “conscious collections,” sponsoring charity campaigns, and pouring ad money into sustainability buzzwords. Greenwashing has starting to become its own product line. And it’s working, kind of. Most people still don’t know that “sustainable” on a label doesn’t actually mean anything. Or that a “recycled” polyester dress might still shed microplastics and come from a sweatshop. Especially without having a proper standardised definition of the what being sustainable even entails, whose to say anyone is being "sustainable". because technically with the umbrella being so broad, were holding people to a standard that's somewhat impossible to upkeep.
But there’s something deeper happening too: culture is shifting.
The aesthetic currency of fast fashion is running out. It’s not aspirational anymore to wear a dress 40,000 other people already bought in five colours. If you’re 19, living in Walthamstow, trying to make a name for yourself as a creative, chances are, you want to wear something that says you, not the algorithm. That means vintage. Archive. Upcycled. Borrowed from a mate. Ripped, remixed, reworked. Anything but another copy of Shein.
Even the resale platforms (Depop, Vinted, eBay) are thriving off the back of fast fashion fatigue. People want to buy smarter, even if they don’t always know how. And younger shoppers are starting to clock the cycle, the fact that a top costs £3 probably means someone somewhere got paid £0.02 to make it. The maths is not mathing.
Obviously, we’re not all out here living in full circular economies. Most of us still slip up. Still impulse-buy a top we saw on TikTok or grab something last minute for a night out. But there’s a difference between surviving within the system and fuelling it blindly.
The difference now is that shame is starting to hit the brands, not the buyers.
So where do we go from here?
Honestly, it’s not about perfection, it’s about pressure. The more people question, the more the cracks show. We need to keep asking: why are brands still dropping 1,000 new items a week? Why do they keep dodging transparency? Why does that £12 jumpsuit still have no information on who made it?
Fast fashion might not disappear overnight, but its era of untouchable dominance? That’s over. The cultural capital has shifted. And in fashion, once you lose the cool kids, it’s game over. The road’s not just running out. Its disappearing.