Forever 21’s fountain of youth has run dry. The brand’s holding company, F21 OpCo, has filed for bankruptcy for the second time since 2019, citing competition from online fast fashion retailers overseas, such as Shein and Temu. The retailer, whose dishevelled clothing racks and harsh lighting provided the backdrop to many a teenage shopping spree in the 2010s, has struggled to meet the evergrowing demands of today’s trend-driven consumer.
All of Forever 21’s bricks-and-mortar stores, as well as online operations, will close by May. At its peak, Forever 21, which dates back to an LA store called Fashion 21 opened in 1984, saw sales peak to $4.4 billion in 2015. It filed for bankruptcy the first time four years later, shaken by a quick rise in ultra-fast fashion competitors, a sector of the industry that’s only gained more traction.
“Shein and Temu have built their success on efficiency and data-driven inventory management, allowing them to deliver trend-driven products faster than traditional production cycles,” says Leigh Sevin, co-founder at CRM and clienteling platform Endear. “Their direct-to-consumer (DTC) model, fuelled by social media virality and aggressive discounting, has created a new kind of impulse-driven shopping culture that thrives on immediacy and affordability.”
But what happened isn’t just that fast fashion moved faster than a legacy multichannel player could compete with. The industry itself has bifurcated, with digital pureplays mastering a blend of demand prediction and knee-jerk manufacturing. Without being able to compete at the same speed, other players moved upmarket. Forever 21 slipped into the middle.
A 2024 Vogue Business survey on Gen Z’s shopping habits found that younger respondents (Gen Z and millennials) are much more likely to discover fashion brands via social media, influencers and celebrities. They’re also more receptive to algorithmic recommendations and product placements, making them more inclined to follow fast-moving TikTok or Instagram micro-trends. As a result, brands are pressured to either cater to Gen Z’s shrinking attention span or swim upmarket — erasing the middle ground that Forever 21, with a focus on neither quality nor trend relevance, occupies.
A fractured fast fashion market
The pandemic intensified the pressure physical retailers were already facing from digital-first competitors. As a result, “traditional bricks-and-mortar stores [might] focus less on price-conscious customers and instead go slightly upmarket with more high fashion offerings and brand collaborations in a way that differentiates them from those in the pure fast fashion lane that Shein and Temu occupy,” says Juan Pellerano-Rendón, CMO of e-commerce platform Swap.
Zara parent company Inditex is investing in ways to enhance shoppers’ in-store experiences. The company’s recently opened flagship store in Nanjing, China, features its first ‘Zacaffe’ outside of Spain, as well as a ‘fit check’ studio — an in-store concept building on Zara’s success with live-stream shopping shows in the region. Over the past year, the brand has introduced similar virtual events in European and US markets. This week, the brand announced it will feature Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber in their second live mother-daughter shopping spree in the past year.
Spanish retailer Mango is also looking to reinvent itself, opening over 60 stores in the US while positioning itself as more of a premium brand through its strategic plan. A spokesperson for the brand said: “Throughout the last fiscal year, Mango has elevated the brand value through aspiration, quality and its unique style designed 100 per cent in Barcelona, as well as collaborations with top-level designers such as Victoria Beckham in womenswear or Boglioli men’s.”
For H&M, despite its long history of designer collaborations, challenges remain. Earlier this year, H&M Group CEO Daniel Ervér acknowledged that, in light of a volatile 2024 and disappointed investors, the company can no longer compete on price alone. (Shein’s average SKU price is $14, compared with $26 at H&M and $34 at Zara.) As part of this strategy, H&M Group will continue to collaborate with influencers and celebrities, use artificial intelligence-generated digital twins in modelling campaigns, and expand the footprint of its premium brand Arket. In a move that signals not only elevation but also direct competition with brands like Shein, the company is streamlining its supply chain and design process to cut the time from concept to store by at least 50 per cent. This aligns with Ervér’s goal of anticipating the wants of trend-focused women. “It’s been really important to win the fashion-interested female customer, and especially the young generation, because she will shape the industry for the future,” he told Reuters.
Reducing supply chain timelines is a relatively safe move compared to the more high-risk attempts of some brands to remain relevant. Pretty Little Thing’s attempt at a sophisticated rebrand landed awkwardly with its core audience, who prefer rave gear to blazers. The website, now awash with beige, offers cheaper versions of items a shopper might find on a Revolve ‘office siren’ edit. Prices are noticeably higher post-rebrand, although the quality of the clothing appears unchanged. Some social media users have labelled the revamp as a recession indicator or a symptom of a broader global conservative shift.
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While legacy brands take elaborate steps to remain relevant, consumers are left struggling to define their personal style. “Post-Covid, we’ve seen two seemingly conflicting trends emerge — an increased demand for ultra-fast, low-cost fashion and a growing push for sustainability and conscious consumerism,” Endear’s Sevin explains. Amna Kirmani, marketing professor at the University of Maryland, elaborates on this paradox. “The biggest downside for consumers with respect to Shein and Temu would be that they are very bad for the environment,” she explains. “But guess what? Despite what consumers say they like, [they] still covet Shein and Temu.” The gap between what consumers say they value and how they actually shop has never been wider.
Shoppers say they crave high-quality fashion but are limited by its burgeoning price point. Some are turning to secondhand pieces in search of balance, only to find that it’s not always the best — or most affordable — option, especially for basics. The amount of time it takes to sift through thrift stores or resale sites is a common complaint. And for trendier items, the commitment of investing in something that might feel outdated in a month just doesn’t add up. “Sometimes, you want to experiment with your personal style, and fast fashion can be a great way to do that with a low-cost risk,” says stylist and TikTok creator Kenzie Welch.
Younger generations are overwhelmed by micro-trends and their environmental impact, but they also find it difficult to turn the other way. Mindlessly tapping “add to cart” on TikTok Shop or browsing a newly rebranded store offers a hit of belonging, softened by the illusion of conscious consumption. Guilt is easier to stomach when the algorithm says everyone else is doing it. And as ridiculous as trends like the fisherman aesthetic may sound, the influence of digital tastemakers in 2025 is hard to deny. Social media has trained younger generations to crave instant gratification above all else.
Shein and Temu are now the primary online fashion market in the United States. “What makes Shein and Temu popular from a consumer perspective is the gamification of the buying experience, offering discounts and rewards and even giving some products away,” says Elizabeth L Cline, author and lecturer of fashion policy at Columbia University. “At the ultra-low price point, a vast swath of consumers can participate in impulse buying, which has become a hugely popular pastime in a world where everything else keeps getting more expensive.”
Although digital ultra-fast fashion marketplaces might feel like the best option for many budget and fashion-conscious shoppers in 2025, as Kirmani points out, they are far from sustainable. McKinsey data indicates that many shoppers see fast fashion items as disposable as the trends they mimic — disposing of clothing after just seven or eight wears. But even with Forever 21’s downfall, fast fashion isn’t going anywhere. The brand cemented a legacy — popularising the blueprint of churning out trend-driven clothes at low cost. So what comes next?
“Ultra-fast fashion is alive and well, as evidenced by Shein and Temu’s extraordinary rise,” Cline says. “But rising costs and geopolitics will likely push more players out of the market, leading to further consolidation.” Meanwhile, middle of the road brands will continue to struggle to keep up with the frenzied pace, style and fickleness of social media. These days, the future of fast fashion is being shaped less by conversations about quality or sustainability — and more by Gen Z’s appetite for constant content. As the pace accelerates and the players evolve, the industry’s future won’t be shaped by nostalgia or novelty — but by who can afford to keep up and who’s willing to look away.
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