Fast Fashion Bankruptcy, The Waste, Its Legacy

It’s not exactly shocking anymore when a fast fashion giant shuts down. But it should still make us pause. No surprise that another major player, Forever 21, recently closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy. Many say it was due to intense competition from two other fast fashion giants. The rise of online retailers offering dirt-cheap prices at lightning speed has only made things worse. And all this is happening while the climate is already in crisis. Fashion giants are still out there, quietly helping destroy the planet.

When a dress costs less than a sandwich, we have to ask ourselves what really went into it. What even are low prices? Low price of labour? Low quality fabric? Low respect for people and the planet? Is this the norm that we have come to terms with? There’s no one answer to that, but we do know that fast fashion is a threat, and it’s time we start talking about what we buy, who we buy it from, and what we choose to see.

The Landfill Legacy

Despite these high-profile failures, fast fashion hasn’t slowed down. If anything, new brands pop up faster than old ones disappear. Fast fashion’s downfall leaves behind a mess the planet can’t afford. Massive textile waste becomes the dumping ground for unsold stock and returned garments.

Most of it is unwearable, unrecyclable, and unaccounted for. These companies may disappear from storefronts, but their legacy remains buried in landfills, floating in oceans, and woven into broken labour systems.

Just because a brand fails doesn’t mean the industry has learned. Fast fashion is not slowing, it’s multiplying. Over 92 million tonnes of textile waste are generated globally each year. In many cases, other fast fashion players simply move faster and cheaper, continuing the same exploitative cycle, only under different names and apps.

When the trend cycles speed up and the fabrics keep getting thinner, the human and environmental cost keeps increasing.

Why?

Because this unsustainable business model still works.

These brands rely on low-cost offshore production, vague sustainability claims, and influencer-heavy marketing to create a sense of urgency. They flood the market with hundreds of styles per week, telling consumers that style must constantly change or you fall behind.

In 2025, you are still being told that your wardrobe from six months ago is outdated. You are still being sold the idea that identity is expressed through rapid consumption. And you are still being fed the lie that something "on trend today" will be irrelevant tomorrow.

These companies may exit the market or rebrand under new names, but the landfill legacy stays. Platforms must stop promoting hyper-consumption as self-expression. Consumers must shift from unconscious buyers to aware decision-makers.

Part of why fast fashion keeps thriving is because it seems like what people want. Scroll through social media, and you’ll see millions of hauls, trend edits, and "outfits for under ₹500" videos. Algorithms reward what gets the most clicks. We’ve been conditioned to believe that more means better. The idea that people love fast fashion is often just a result of this manufactured demand. To change this, visibility needs to shift. Make rewearing normal. Make slowing down fashionable. Since algorithms follow attention, let’s start directing that attention elsewhere.

And unless something radically shifts, the next generation will inherit the waste of trends we wore once and forgot.