Bright lights, dance music, people walking around with clothes stacked in their arms… You browse the latest trends, and then you check out the discount racks filled with things that were in fashion just a few weeks ago. Next thing you know, you’re walking out of the store with two shopping bags full of new clothes for your overflowing wardrobe.
Sound familiar?
Although this might be an exaggeration, most of us have found ourselves swept up by the wave of fast fashion at one point or another. With so many popular brands changing up their catalogues before your new clothes can even begin to feel old, being fashionable has never been simpler. It’s also never been so deceptively sinister.
Fast fashion’s fast track to environmental degradation
The distressing byproducts of the fast fashion business model are well known. A review of 119 research papers revealed a long list of environmental impacts, including the release of microplastics from textiles, health impacts on nearby residents and animals from chemical water pollution, as well as low wages and dismal working conditions for the people who make the clothes.1 On top of that, the fashion industry is responsible for up to 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, with fast fashion’s carbon footprint being 11 times higher than that of traditional fashion!2
Although customers are willing to pay more for sustainably sourced clothing, there still exists a gap between good intentions and actual buying behaviour. There are several reasons for this, such as limited access to sustainable options or a simple lack of knowledge. But what about the role that our emotions play in our purchasing behaviour?
When fear gets the better of us
Have you ever felt a sense of being left out for not dressing like your favourite influencer or the “popular kids” at school? With the pressure to always keep up made worse by the ubiquity of social media and social media influencers, not wanting to be excluded from the “in-group” could be another factor driving consumer behaviour in the fast fashion industry.
Consumers are increasingly concerned with sustainability.3 Not surprisingly, fashion brands communicate their sustainability efforts to the public. How credible customers find these claims play into their decisions to buy their products. Unfortunately, some companies ride the sustainability wave and mislead customers into believing that they have a lower environmental impact than is really the case – or in other words, greenwashing! Until fast fashion companies drastically reduce the amount they produce, their green claims don’t hold up to scrutiny – something which has not happened yet.4
Eco-friendly consumers might not fall for the trap of greenwashing. But what about FOMO? Can the strong desire to not be excluded override the lack of trust that customers have for fast fashion companies?
FOMO vs. Brand Credibility – The internal battle behind consumer behaviour
To investigate, a team of researchers from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences gave questionnaires to 202 participants from Switzerland and France, and 255 participants from the United States.
In the questionnaires, the respondents were asked about the likelihood that they would purchase from a fast fashion brand in the future, their perceptions of the credibility of the brand’s sustainability claims, how responsible they think the brands should be for their environmental and social impact, and whether or not they experienced FOMO if they didn’t buy from their favourite brands.
Next, they gave the same questionnaire to a group of 220 American participants, but this time asking about “slow fashion”. As its name suggests, slow fashion is fast fashion’s polar opposite! Slow fashion brands prioritise timeless styles over ever-changing trends and make clothes out of durable fabrics that have a smaller environmental impact.5
Slow fashion, credible fashion
Upon analysing the responses, the researchers found that FOMO indeed affected people’s decision making when buying fast fashion. Those who were more afraid of missing out were more likely to buy clothes from fast fashion companies, even when they knew these companies were bad news for the planet.
Interestingly, when the analysis was carried out among the slow fashion group, FOMO didn’t seem to make a difference in their purchase intentions. This is likely because anyone who chooses to buy slow fashion has already made a commitment to sustainability over fads, making FOMO irrelevant.
The researchers pointed out some limitations to their work, including the need for more research to understand the origin of FOMO. But most of us do experience it to some extent, which begs the question: how does one stay fashionable without breaking the bank, feeling left out, or carrying the guilt of knowingly contributing to environmental and social issues?
The solution is simple: second hand shopping!
How to find another way
By buying second hand, you’ll satisfy the desire to be stylish while simultaneously saving money and the environment. You can find high quality items that cost a mere fraction of their price when new, which also outlast their fast fashion counterparts. By shopping second hand, you promote circular fashion by making sure that a garment is worn until the end of its lifespan, keeping materials in use for as long as possible before being recycled into something else.6
If you want to take it up a notch, consider participating in movements like Oxfam’s Second Hand September where people shop only second hand for 30 days.7, 8 To find out more about the movement and other ways you can contribute, be sure to check out Oxfam’s Second Hand September blog posts on all things sustainable fashion! And remember, maybe standing out from the crowd with vintage pieces that nobody else has will make that FOMO go away.
Article written by Hari Arevalagam
Primary paper
Bläse, R. et al. (2023) ‘Non‐sustainable buying behavior: How the fear of missing out drives purchase intentions in the Fast Fashion Industry’, Business Strategy and the Environment, 33(2), pp. 626–641. doi:10.1002/bse.3509.
Other references
- Olivar Aponte, N. et al. (2024) ‘Fast fashion consumption and its environmental impact: a literature review’, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1). doi: 10.1080/15487733.2024.2381871.
- Li, Z. et al. (2024) ‘The carbon footprint of fast fashion consumption and mitigation strategies-A case study of Jeans’, Science of The Total Environment, 924, p. 171508. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171508.
- SAP (2024) Why the rise of sustainability is a shift in consumer conciousness, Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2024/05/14/why-the-rise-of-sustainability-is-a-shift-in-consumer-conciousness/.
- Abelvik-Lawson, H. (2024) Fashion greenwash: How companies are hiding the true environmental costs of fast fashion, Greenpeace UK. Available at: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/fashion-greenwash-report-companies-hiding-true-environmental-costs-fast-fashion/.
- Flora Symons, in the O.O.S. team (2023) What is slow fashion?, Oxfam GB. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/what-is-slow-fashion/.
- Rice, L. (2025) Buying second hand clothes: What are the benefits?, Oxfam GB. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/the-benefits-of-buying-second-hand/.
- Second hand September (no date) Oxfam GB. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/second-hand-september/.
- Canfield, Z. (2025) Never taken part in Second hand September?, Oxfam GB. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/oxfam-blog/never-taken-part-in-second-hand-september/.
All images taken from Canva.
