Forever 21: A Cautionary Tale of Ignoring the Trends that Matter
No chain embodies ‘fast fashion’ like Forever 21. They are the pioneer in churning out popular trends at too-good-to-be-true prices. Their stores were ubiquitous all across the States, like the Starbucks of clothing retailers. However, despite its massive success, it too fell prey to the retail apocalypse and filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
Perhaps the biggest misstep for Forever 21 was the inability to adapt. Even though their clothing lines religiously followed trends, the company itself was unable to see the bigger trend in industry. They assumed that more shops amounted to more sales, and thus focused their efforts on buying up real estate and opening up massive stores. In reality, consumers (especially the younger generation they target) increasingly preferred to shop online in this digital age. Physical stores in general were on a decline, and many retail chains started closing down for not adapting to the migration online as well. Forever 21 failed to understand their consumers’ behavior, and were doing the exact opposite by aggressively opening up more locations.
Another assumption that the chain made was that shoppers would keep wanting cheap trendy clothes. Over the past few years, consumers have become increasingly educated on the waste that fast fashion generates, and have heightened demand for sustainability and ethical practices. Other competitors such as H&M and Zara have responded to this demand by creating sustainable lines (though perhaps more performative than making a real difference), which somewhat soothed people’s minds when they shopped there. Forever 21 did not make any attempt to move towards sustainability or change their business model, thus making consumers (especially Gen Z) look elsewhere to buy higher quality clothing from companies that reflect their values.
I’ll admit, I’d been guilty of buying fast fashion in the past. Everyone shopped there, the clothes were cheap, what’s not to like? However, times have since changed for the better. The rise and fall of Forever 21 just goes to show that no matter how successful a business may be, it could easily meet its downfall for ignoring consumer behavior and not adapting to the trends that matter.
