Fast Fashion Is the Fast Food of the Wardrobe
By Fiona van Iersel
Minerva Empowerment
Marketing Sustainability and Ethics
16 January 2026

Fast fashion is the retail equivalent of eating an entire family-sized McMeal XL for dinner. It feels efficient, affordable and deeply satisfying in the moment. Then the moment passes, and you are surrounded by an alarming amount of rubbish. With fast fashion, the waste does not stay in your car. The consequences travel far beyond the excitement of buying something new.

When I looked back at my own purchases, I noticed that fast fashion purchases were rarely planned. They happened during moments of boredom, stress, or emotional justification disguised as self care. As someone very much shaped by the “one pill fixes everything” mindset of the 1980s, I can see how easy it is to seek instant solutions. Research supports this pattern, showing that fast fashion consumption is often impulsive and emotionally driven rather than need based (Joy et al., 2012). These habits contribute to high clothing turnover rates and increasing textile waste, with garments frequently discarded long before the end of their usable life (Niinimäki et al., 2020). I also noticed this behaviour emerging in my own children, who already associate new purchases with a burst of excitement, reinforcing how early these consumption patterns form.

From an industry perspective, one of the most impactful strategies for reducing environmental harm is transitioning from a linear production model to a circular fashion system. Circular fashion focuses on designing garments for durability, reuse, repair, and recycling in order to keep materials in use for longer and reduce waste (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017). This approach directly addresses the environmental burden created by overproduction and disposal that dominates fast fashion supply chains.

Another difficult industry strategy is slowing down production cycles. Constant trend turnover encourages a stream of new products and creates the risk of excess stock. Better demand planning could help align production with actual need; the commercial and environmental results would still need to be measured (McKinsey & Company, 2020). Speed affects people as well as products. I wonder how much creative quality and wellbeing we lose when nobody is allowed to pause.

Supply-chain transparency also matters. The human cost of a five-pound shirt deserves scrutiny alongside its environmental footprint. Supplier mapping can help a brand investigate where and how its clothes are made, while assessment of working conditions has to extend beyond the finished garment. The ILO’s review of safety and health in garment factories examines both the drivers of improvement and the obstacles (International Labour Organization, 2021). Consumer concern is not enough on its own when affordability constrains the choices people can make. Labour protections and enforcement matter too, alongside the ambition for decent work in the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015).

Reducing fashion’s impact does not have to mean abandoning style or self-expression. White, Habib and Hardisty (2019) identify identity, habits, social influence, feelings, cognition and tangible outcomes as routes into more sustainable behaviour. That makes me want to ask what an alternative offers people, rather than rely entirely on guilt. Does it fit their life? Does it feel like something they want to keep doing?

One effective lifestyle shift is focusing on quality rather than quantity. Looking back at my purchases revealed that the garments I wore most were not impulse buys, but pieces that fit well and remained functional over time. Tools such as cost per wear analysis and capsule wardrobes help consumers reassess value and reduce impulsive purchasing by reframing what “cheap” really means over time (Fletcher, 2014).

Materials such as leather also make the comparison more complicated. Emissions, water use and animal welfare matter, but so do durability, repair and how long something is actually kept. A pair of shoes that can be repaired repeatedly poses a different question from a short-lived purchase. Material comparisons need to account for those conditions; a label alone does not settle the whole-life impact (Niinimäki et al., 2020).

Second-hand shopping, rental and swapping can extend the use of clothing and challenge the assumption that newness equals value (Joy et al., 2012). Their environmental benefit still depends on what they replace and the resources involved. The question is whether a garment is being used well for longer, rather than simply moving through another fast cycle.

Reducing the social, environmental, and economic impact of fast fashion requires both systemic industry change and individual habit shifts. Fashion does not need to stop being fun to become more ethical. It simply needs fewer impulse decisions, fewer disposable garments, and fewer systems that rely on exploitation to remain profitable. A smaller wardrobe, a slower industry, and a more intentional relationship with clothing can significantly reduce harm while still leaving room for creativity, self expression, and the occasional statement piece.

We are watching an absurd situation unfold and stuffing it in our closets. The days of “coming out of the closet” have a different meaning now. A lot of our shameful purchases are not coming out.

The fast-food comparison comes back here. Sometimes you choose it because you are tired, busy, emotionally compromised, or all three. Fast fashion can do the same job, just with better marketing (Joy et al., 2012).

The emotional cycle is painfully efficient. You’re tired, you’re scrolling. You suddenly feel inadequate, like you’re missing something. You buy something to correct that. You feel briefly better, like you’ve achieved something, ticked a box today. You’re excited. The item arrives. You are going to be a better version of you. Well done, you. Hold on. It doesn’t look like the picture. Hold on. It doesn’t look the same on me. Hold on. This material is awful. Oh no, it’s destroyed in one wash. Maybe this is not me. I’ll have to find another me.

This is where the individual-blame narrative falls apart. Values have to operate under difficult conditions, while marketing promises a better you for cheap. Sustainability often lives exactly where ethical intention collides with convenience and affordability (Boström & Klintman, 2019).

Look at the environment we are operating in: urgency, exhaustion and the feeling that there is always something else to do. That is fertile ground for clicking “add to cart” and calling it self-care, especially when consumption becomes emotional regulation (Dittmar, 2005).

Which makes the question of scale almost funny. If fast fashion wins by being fast, cheap, and endless, why would the solution be… slightly slower fast fashion? At that point, we’re not buying clothes. We’re buying the hope that a package arriving will make today feel different. The package arrives. Today does not. The material costs of that constant turnover are harder to dismiss when we look at fashion’s environmental impacts (Niinimäki et al., 2020).

So the closet fills up. Fast fashion cuts out the waiting period in which you might have changed your mind, accelerating both emotional and material obsolescence (Bick et al., 2018).

Advertising keeps offering another thing to want. The tension between accumulation and wellbeing runs through research on materialism too (Dittmar et al., 2014).

The underlying question stays with me: if fast fashion feeds on exhaustion, boredom and restlessness, what would it mean to design for contentment instead? And what happens to an industry whose business model depends on us never quite feeling finished?

References

Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2017). A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future. https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org

Fletcher, K. (2014). Sustainable fashion and textiles: Design journeys (2nd ed.). Routledge.

International Labour Organization. (2021). Occupational safety and health improvement in the garment industry: Drivers and constraints. A synthesis review. https://www.ilo.org/publications/occupational-safety-and-health-improvement-garment-industry-drivers-and

Joy, A., Sherry, J. F., Venkatesh, A., Wang, J., & Chan, R. (2012). Fast fashion, sustainability, and the ethical appeal of luxury brands. Fashion Theory, 16(3), 273–295. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174112X13340749707123

McKinsey & Company. (2020). Fashion on climate: How the fashion industry can urgently act to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. https://www.mckinsey.com

Niinimäki, K., Peters, G., Dahlbo, H., Perry, P., Rissanen, T., & Gwilt, A. (2020). The environmental price of fast fashion. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1(4), 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0039-9

Peattie, K., & Belz, F. M. (2010). Sustainability marketing—An innovative conception of marketing. Marketing Review St. Gallen, 27(5), 8–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11621-010-0085-7

United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://sdgs.un.org

White, K., Habib, R., & Hardisty, D. J. (2019). How to shift consumer behaviors to be more sustainable. Journal of Marketing, 83(3), 22–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919825649

Bick, R., Halsey, E., & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, 17(92), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7

Boström, M., & Klintman, M. (2019). Can we rely on “climate-friendly” consumption? Journal of Consumer Culture, 19(3), 359–378. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540517717782

Dittmar, H. (2005). Compulsive buying: A growing concern? British Journal of Psychology, 96(4), 467–491. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712605X53533

Dittmar, H., Bond, R., Hurst, M., & Kasser, T. (2014). The relationship between materialism and personal well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5), 879–924. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037409