We were biking to a house party when it happened: the side seam of my dress ripped, practically from the very top under my arm to the waist. It didn’t even make a dramatic sound. Just a sort of a low sigh of resignation.
I stopped and yelled to my friend, who was half a block behind me on her bike.
“MY DRESS HAS DISINTEGRATED!”
We moved over to the sidewalk, propping our bikes against a stop sign, laughing at the silliness of it all.
Neither of us were particularly surprised. As my friend pointed out, “I mean, you paid like $19.90 for this thing and you’ve somehow managed to wear it half a dozen times.”
It was true (as we saw it): these super cheap clothes from Forever 21 had a short expiration date. One couldn’t expect to wear a $19.90 dress for years on end. And apparently one couldn’t even expect to wear it for months on end.
Fortunately–because my wardrobe was almost entirely comprised of thrifted clothes and random Forever 21 treats–I was always prepared for a wardrobe malfunction. You have to be when you bike everywhere. Going home naked isn’t an option! So I always carried an Altoids tin of essential items for sidewalk clothing repair: an array of safety pins, a mini stapler, and even a travel mending kit from the clearance section at Joann. In fact, before I started working from home, I always had a similar mending kit in my desk drawer at the office. I carry a version in my suitcase when I’m traveling. And yes, I usually have at least a few safety pins thrown into my purse. I mean, are you surprised? I’ve already told you that I carry a measuring tape with me everywhere!
But back to that sidewalk in SE Portland. My brain remembers it as Ankeny, the “bike highway” for traveling east/west on the east side of town. My friend and I rigged up a line of safety pins under the bodice of my dress. Was it comfortable? No. Did it look kinda okay? Sure. And we continued on with our bike ride and the rest of our evening. This was peak house party/house show era in Portland…where one could pedal around from house to house all night long, powered by Sparks and the sheer excitement of summer in the Pacific Northwest. That summer Dylan was visiting my mom and it meant that I could hang out with people my own age at night for the first time in years. So I had a lot of living to do that summer. By the time I undressed several hours later, a combination of sweat and body heat had allowed the safety pins to settle into my skin, leaving their raw imprint behind. It hurt. But at least the “repair” had held for the night.
Did I learn some valuable lesson that night? Did I stop buying $19.90 dresses in favor of quality?
No. If anything, I just added a wider variety of safety pins to my Altoids tin. Because there was something about Forever 21 and its arrival in my life that had just fundamentally changed my view on the value and price of clothing.
Fast forward (and I mean, fast forward A LOT) to last month, and Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy for the second time in about five-ish years. It is planning to close all of its stores in the coming months as it winds down its operations. This was a long time coming. Forever 21–who literally retrained all of us to think about clothes as disposable items—has been beaten in its own game by even cheaper, even more unethical competitors like SHEIN, Temu, and even Amazon. And while we don’t tend to dig into every fast fashion brand that disappears, Forever 21 is more than just a purveyor of self-destructing clothes: it was a pioneer in fast fashion here in the United States. It fundamentally changed our relationship with clothing and its value, along with our concept of how much clothing we should buy and own. There is no SHEIN or Princess Polly without Forever 21. So this week, we’re going to take a deep dive into the history of Forever 21 and how it changed fashion forever.
Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that is currently listening to a playlist of music from my years folding t-shirts at Urban Outfitters in the 00s.
I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 231. This week we are going to be talking all about Forever 21. It is an adaptation (and sort of extended version) of a post I shared on social media a few weeks ago. We’ll be talking about the following topics:
And so much more.
I will say that my post about Forever 21 reminded me of the opportunities we have to talk to others about fast fashion in productive, encouraging ways. I intentionally make myself vulnerable by sharing my own experiences because I think it’s really important to show that we are all in this together. That everything is “we” and “us” even if we’ve never shopped fast fashion in our lives. Because the moment it turns into “you do this” and “i never do that,” people don’t want to hear what we have to say. End of conversation, and the end of any potential progress with that person.
So a lot of people showed up in the comments to talk about their own experiences shopping at Forever 21 (good and bad) and it was actually a super fun conversation to have. After all, for all of the bad things we’re about to say about Forever 21 in this episode, there is a certain nostalgia to it all. The way the stores were way too bright and chaotic. The jewelry was all a bit too shiny. The really ugly design of the stores. It feels so emblematic of a time in my life. I can let myself feel nostalgic while also being like “wtf Forever 21, you’re a bad, bad company.” Life is complicated like that. And we can learn from all of this. The most important thing: conversations like this actually open eyes and bring people into the community. It’s a good thing!
But people definitely showed up in the comments to flex how they were too cool for Forever 21, how they always knew it was bad, that they knew too much about clothing back then to fall for Forever 21…and listen, congrats if all of that is true. But it makes everyone else in the comment section who is being honest about their own experiences feel stupid. We can’t be that way if we want more people to join the slow fashion movement. No one wins a prize for being the most right or coolest person in the comments section of a social media post. Just more for us to think about as we get better at having these conversations!
I’m going to be honest with you: thinking back to that summer, biking around with orange stained lips (Sparks!), kissing new people, falling asleep every night with my heart full of how much life there was to live every day…it legit makes my heart ache right now. I remember it as the summer I began to feel like the grief of my partner’s death was finally lifting a little bit. The sadness was not gone. The pain was still there. But there was a little bit of room for something else. For new people and new experiences and long nights of riding my bike around and eating Chic-O-Sticks with my Rina. Watching the sun rise on my friend Tomm’s porch. Going to house parties with Alana and telling everyone we were mathematicians.
To be clear: I was broke. I couldn’t even afford to take the bus to work, so my bike was my primary form of transportation. Every morning before dawn, I packed Dylan into a trailer attached to my bike, and pedalled a few miles to day care. I took them inside, locked up the trailer outside, then got back onto my bike and rode six miles to work. After my shift, I repeated this in reverse.
If the bus was out of my budget, new clothes were a major luxury. Just about everything we wore was either from the thrift store of the Buffalo Exchange. Every six months or so, I bought the same pair of $39 jeans from the Juniors section at Fred Meyer, which I wore under my dresses to protect my limited number of tights from pedals, gears, and weather. I patched them over and over until they were no longer wearable.
And then a friend introduced me to Forever 21. At this point, fast fashion was kinda new, especially in Portland, OR. We didn’t have H+M or Zara. But we did have Forever 21, on the first floor of the Lloyd Center. The first time I walked through it, I was kinda shocked.
Tank tops for $1.90. How?
Jeans for $9.90. What?!
And entire dresses for under $20.
Socks were 90 cents. Jewelry was under $5. Tights were $3.90.
These prices were in line with thrift stores, so it was just all so confusing.
None of it made any sense to me because I worked in a clothing store, Urban Outfitters. Our tank tops were $18. Jeans started at $68. Tights were $20. And the most confusing element of it all? The clothes at UO were low quality and didn’t last. Some days I spent hours processing returns on jeans where the ass had blown out because someone dared to walk upstairs. Shirts that shed their buttons within minutes of the first wear. Tights with one leg a foot longer than the other.
If the clothes at my job were horrible at those prices, what were people getting at Forever 21?
At the same time…I could spend $25 and get a whole outfit? I didn’t generally care very much about trends, but I also had to admit that most days I was wearing the latest trends of 1972. It might be nice to wear something contemporary.
My first purchase at Forever 21 was a fruit printed jersey dress that I sewed back together many times that year. But it certainly wasn’t my last Forever 21 purchase. When I had slightly more money, I found myself visiting the store almost every week. I would spend $20-30 and leave with an entire bag of stuff.
But this habit had drawbacks:
And for a long time, I kinda accepted these issues, just like my friends did. After all, what could we expect from a $1.90 tank or a $2.90 necklace? The prices implied that these things were essentially disposal. We shouldn’t expect much from them.
As a vintage lover and avid thrifter, this felt super weird to me (at first). After all, some of my favorite dresses had been $1 at the bins. With some cleaning and quick repairs, they were built to last decades. But these brand new items at the same price were intended to be treated like Kleenex: used briefly, then tossed out. And over time, while it never felt “comfortable” to me, I just accepted this. My brain just started to consider clothing differently than it had previously. Clothes were just less valuable to me. To be clear: not less important. Just worth less $$$.
We all accepted this. And now, decades later, we are unpacking it all. Recognizing that “disposable clothing” isn’t actually disposable at all.
Right now is a good point to make a few callouts:
In the past, I have talked about how SHEIN’s prices are unnaturally, artificially low. On one hand, it’s because they have not had to pay duties on anything they ship into the United States. That might change now with the new US tariff policy, but who really knows at this point? That policy seems to change every week.
But in the past (at least) SHEIN was able to offer prices lower than anyone else’s because they weren’t paying to import any of it. They also don’t have the expense of hundreds of stores (like Forever 21) and the overhead of the employees to staff them. Trust me–when we buy clothes in a store, we’re paying for the clothes, but also the store rent and utilities, the fixtures, the cash register, the employees helping us. SHEIN avoids all of that. But SHEIN also keeps its prices artificially low via other tactics:
In the 2000s, Forever 21 was offering low pricing unlike anyone else out there. Lower than any store at the mall. Lower than H+M (which was just beginning its movement into the US market). Lower than places like Walmart. And yeah, I’m sure someone is already writing me a DM about how they found stuff with prices as low as Forever 21 at Ross or Marshall’s, but in general, Forever 21’s pricing was significantly lower than anyone else out there. $1.90 tank tops and $9.90 jeans were a revelation in a world where clothes were more expensive than they are now. And one of the reasons you’ll never see me being shitty and judgmental about people who shop from SHEIN is that I get it. If SHEIN existed in 2004, and I didn’t know what I know now about fast fashion, I would have been shopping from SHEIN. Because it would have given me a chance to have clothing in a world where I could not afford clothing. It would have allowed me to have new birthday outfits and new party outfits and new underwear more than once every few years from the clearance rack at Marshall’s.
Forever 21 filled that void for many of us in the 00s. And it helped that many of us didn’t know a lot about the art and science of making clothing. Specifically that all clothing is made by human hands, even $1.90 tank tops at Forever 21. I definitely (if you had asked me back then, before I began my career as a buyer) thought that machines made clothes. Otherwise how could they be so cheap?
But also, it’s not like I ever took five minutes to think critically about a $19.90 dress, breaking down the cost of the whole thing:
I didn’t think about that then, just like everyone else. And even now, people aren’t thinking about all of that.
But ultimately: the math doesn’t math when you consider all of that and a $19.90 retail price. Something is being cut somewhere. We know that Forever 21 would have had shocking overhead with all of those ever-expanding stores, the staff that ran them, and the corporate infrastructure to keep the company going. So they needed to mark up that $19.90 dress a considerable amount to cover all of that. I would guess that dress probably cost (at most) $6-7, including freight and duties.
How do you make a dress that costs so little?
Well, it’s the same old story: low quality everything, stolen designs, and underpaid workers working in bad conditions.
Once again: we didn’t know that then. Or at least, we didn’t let ourselves think about it too hard. And really, Forever 21 was a trailblazer in making people forget about these things in favor of low, low prices and infinite assortment.
Eventually I “accidentally” found myself with a career in fashion, so I left Portland. And over time, I left shopping at Forever 21 behind me. Not because I felt I was “too good” for it. Not because I had some crisis of conscience about $1.90 tank tops. There were just more options, often better options for cheap clothing. I had my employee discount, thrifting, and sample sales to fill my wardrobe. In fact, one thing I was painfully aware of as I worked at my desk at Urban Outfitters Home Office each day was that no one who worked there really wore Urban Outfitters clothes (unless they were uncool). Everyone wore much more expensive clothing from boutiques and brands that were mentioned in Nylon and the $20 fashion magazines that one could buy at the coffee shop in building 543 (the hub of the URBN campus).
Well, I couldn’t afford those kinds of clothes anymore than I could afford a $20 magazine. So I settled into a wardrobe primarily composed of vintage from thrift stores and eBay. And that was kinda my thing. People expected me to show up in some outrageous vintage outfit every day and that felt just fine to me. It set me apart from the rest of the buying team in their $300 sweaters and $500 shoes.
Despite everyone’s desire to be way fancier than we really were, there were two brands that gave the executives at Urban Outfitters sleepless nights in the late 00s (and boy, were they two very different brands, both LA brands: Forever 21 and American Apparel.
We actually feared these two companies so much. American Apparel was doing something very different: making clothes in the United States, charging higher prices, and making it work (somehow). And of course, the branding, the store design, the creepy porno-vibes advertising…it was kinda the coolest thing any brand was doing in the 00s.
And Forever 21 was none of those things: no heartwarming made in the USA story, no sexy advertising, no coolness involved at all.
But the company was on a tear, opening up bigger and bigger stores all over the world. Even the Forever 21 at the Lloyd Center gradually ate up the retail spaces next to it, then above it, turning into a two story behemoth.
In 2019–when Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy the first time–the company released documents that portrayed the most iconic version of the American Dream imaginable. One section was titled, “Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion.” And in many ways (despite the cheesy title), the story of Forever 21 IS a tale of immigrants moving to the United States, working really hard, and building a better future for themselves and their family.
Husband and wife (and immigrants from South Korea) Do Won Chang and Jin Sook Chang opened a store called Fashion 21 in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1984. They funded this new business with $11,000 in savings. Their target customer was the LA Korean American community. Initially the inventory was closeouts from local manufacturers. And in the first year they did about $70,000 in sales. Not bad.
Over time, they changed the name of their store to Forever 21–because Mrs. Chang felt that 21 was “the most enviable age.” They opened more and more stores in southern California. Mr. Chang oversaw landlord and vendor relationships, while Mrs. Chang led product design and in-store merchandising. And they rapidly adopted this new (at the time) fast fashion model of doing business. Mrs. Chang and her team would identify new trends, then pressure vendors to provide the lowest costs for these items. And it was imperative that the stores were filled with a ton of new styles all the time. And these stores were becoming HUGE in size, too. On average about 25,000 square feet, five times the size of your standard “larger” mall store, like a Gap or Abercrombie. So this meant churning out a lot of products. Even stranger, in 2007 Lisa Boisset, Forever 21’s vice president for merchandise, told the New York Times that the company had no designers, just (as Boisset said), “just very savvy merchants.” And somehow, this team of “savvy” merchants managed to churn out a massive amount of new styles super fast, often within six weeks of first concept.
It seems impossible, doesn’t it?
Oh wait…I know that happens…by copying every designer and brand that’s already out there. AH, A FAST FASHION CLASSIC. That means just sending photos and scans of magazine tears to the factory and saying “MAKE THIS.” I would say that Forever 21 was innovative in this way, but heck, I worked for a brand in the 00s that inspired a blog called “Urban Counterfeiters.” Soooo…Of course, this approach meant that Forever 21 found itself in a lot of legal trouble over the years for blatantly copying designs and art. In 2007 alone, Forever 21 was facing lawsuits from Anna Sui, Harajuku Lovers, Diane Von Furstenberg, Trovata, and 16 other cases. All for copying designs.
For a long time, Forever 21 worked with the vendors in the San Pedro Apparel Mart in downtown LA, a predominantly Korean group of businesses. Way back in my series about the rise and expansion of fast fashion, I talked about the San Pedro Apparel Mart, because lots of online retailers (like Modcloth, Nasty Gal, and Lulus) were sourcing their inventory from the Mart in the 2010s.
In fact, I’m just going to go ahead and plagiarize myself by retelling you what I said about the Mart back in those episodes:
Imagine about 300 different showrooms of inexpensive, high profit, fast fashion clothing, with new arrivals every single week. And everything you find there could ship to your warehouse in two weeks or less!
It’s hard to describe the Mart to someone who has never been there. One showroom after another, with names like Hot & Delicious, Cotton Candy, Virgins Only (for real). “Showroom” is kind of a generous description for spaces crammed with rolling racks of new arrivals and stuff in the works. People are rushing around with racks and boxes full of shipment. Every showroom has a bowl of M&Ms. Most of these “brands” are really acting as the middle man between factories overseas and the boutiques and retailers that shop there. In my early days at Modcloth, a big chunk of business at the Mart was coming from Forever 21. In fact, that’s where a lot of the early Forever 21 inventory came from. But over time Forever 21 elected to cut out the middle man (meaning these showrooms at the Mart) and go factory direct for lower prices, more selection, more exclusivity, and faster delivery).
So who shopped at the Mart? Boutique owners for one. Boutique owners from all over would fly down to LA, go to the Mart, and buy a few months worth of inventory on the spot. Other shopkeepers would go to MAGIC–the big fashion trade show that happens twice in a year in Vegas–and place the orders with these Mart brands there. And in the years that I was working for Modcloth and Nasty Gal, more and more of these online-only retailers were shopping there in a major way: Lulus, Dolls Kill, Modcloth, Nasty Gal. The Mart was great for these smaller online retailers who needed a ton of newness all the time, but didn’t have the buying power or budget for a full on design team.
And this Mart clothing was profitable. Why? Because customers just couldn’t google it and find it for a cheaper price. This meant that we could charge as much as we wanted for it!
A typical trip to the Mart meant walking around—often for a full 8 hour day–from showroom to showroom, looking at the new arrivals. You might find half a dozen new styles at this one, twenty at the next, and so on. After a while, it would start to feel kinda boring, as you saw essentially the same thing over and over again. At that point, pricing becomes the deciding factor: who has the lowest cost. Still, we would trudge along, visiting 20, 30, or more places in one day. Each visit just a quick pop in to browse the racks, and then off to the next spot. The vendors would drop off samples of everything at our office the next day and we would make our picks. We might be sifting through 100-200 different items, trying to find the best ones. Then we would write the orders and they would deliver a few weeks later. We did this at least once a week, if not more.
The San Pedro Apparel Mart still exists and I still see “brands” I recognize from there in just about every boutique I visit. There are online retailers who sell exclusively product from the Mart, like Dressed in Lala.
And over time, online platforms arose that made it easier for online retailers and boutiques alike to order these “brands” directly, either from the vendors in the Mart or directly from the factory.
By the time I was working at Modcloth and Nasty Gal in the mid 2010s, Forever 21 was doing a lot less work with brands in the Mart, going factory direct instead. But to be fair, Forever 21 helped all of those businesses grow. And most of them were family businesses, just like Forever 21! The father and mother might run the business, the adult children worked the showrooms and handled the communication with customers. That said–Forever 21 was able to make the math MATH in its ever expanding business by getting any cost it demanded out of its vendors. And when that wasn’t good enough, they cut them out and went directly to the factories themselves. No one could say “no” to Forever 21 if they wanted to stay in business, even if it meant they made pennies off of each unit they sold to Forever 21. And that extended beyond the products Forever 21 was selling, to the companies making bags for them, shipping their products, etc. No one could say no to them.
Forever 21–despite bringing in more than $4 billion in sales at its peak, all while employing 43,000 people worldwide–remained privately owned and family run for decades. And many analysts say that this insular approach to running the company was its downfall.
But in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, Forever 21 was practically printing its own money, while at UO, we were slashing prices and budgets. In 2005, Forever 21 had enough capital to buy mall chain Gadzooks. And it also launched its own chain of freestanding accessories stores called For Love. Forever 21 was outshining every other retail store in the United States.
And Forever 21 was benefitting from a few things:
Soon some of the most talented creatives at UO were defecting to Forever 21, swapping cold Philadelphia winters for constant sunshine in LA.A few years into my buying career, I felt like I needed to leave Philly and UO. I was so unhappy in every single way. I saw a job posting for Forever 21 that seemed like a perfect fit. A former coworker at UO had made the shift to Forever 21 a year before. Rumors were that she made a lot more money and was having the time of her life. I emailed her, asking her how the transition had been.
Her response was odd. “I can’t talk about this via email. I will call you after work tonight.”
She called me very late that night. It was about 8pm in LA. “Sorry I couldn’t email you back because they read our emails. We aren’t allowed to say anything negative about the company or we will be fired.”
She had just left work for a few hours and she was going to go teach a yoga class for extra money, then return to the office. They paid her so little that she had to teach yoga every day and pick up other extra work on the weekend. The hours were grueling. Most days she had meetings at work at 6 or 7 am, and she would be there until close to midnight. The environment was hectic, stressful, and often nasty.
She ended it with, “I’m glad I am in LA but I miss how easy Urban was in comparison to this.”
I didn’t apply for the job.
But over the years, I met many people who had begun their career at Forever 21. Everyone had stories, mostly bad. Of only being allowed to take red eye flights to trade shows, being forced to share rooms with coworkers on trips (the worst), and always being expected to come into the office for a full day of work after that red eye flight landed at 5 am. The pace was frantic, and no matter how hard you worked, if Mrs. Chang didn’t like you or something you wanted to buy, you were fucked. All decisions passed through Mrs. Chang and if she wanted you at work at 6 am or 10pm to review potential new styles, you were there at the office. Friends and vendors alike told me stories of meeting rooms with bibles. The underside of Forever 21’s painfully (and iconically) yellow shopping bags said “John 3:16,” a reference to a bible verse. I finally googled what that verse is today: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. Um, that’s a choice for a company that most likely exploited a ton of workers around the world to make $1.90 tank tops and OMG has contributed to some landfills. But such is humanity…complex and sometimes hypocritical.
Forever 21 was just one of many companies (including Urban Outfitters) that underpaid and overworked buyers and designers until they broke.Those that came from more privileged backgrounds might launch their own brand or open a boutique. The rest of us just moved from one bad job to another.
There was a period where even a fashion professional like myself could look at Forever 21 and their product concepts, store merchandising, and brand partnerships and say “They really are doing this very well.” You had to give them credit for making themselves an iconic part of millennial culture. They managed to catch every single trend and have it in their stores. Which–listen, I get SHEIN does that now, but they don’t have to make the stuff and fill hundreds of stores with it. Somehow Forever 21 into the hands of its customers faster than everyone else. A lot of this was based on strong relationships with factories in China, along with a brutal work culture.
And over the years, Forever 21 was in every mall, even small rural ones. In bigger markets, they took over entire department stores’ anchor spots, along with empty Borders locations (massive bookstores where I spent my teenage years feeling very cool). And filling those stores was a challenge. In fact, years later (as they filed for bankruptcy in 2019), Linda Chang (the executive vice president of the company, expected to be her father’s successor) told the New York Times, “Having to fill those boxes on top of having to deal with the complexities of expanding internationally did stress our merchant organization.” The company needed to spend a lot of money to fill those stores. And over time, there were just too many stores in dying malls. Meanwhile, the company wasn’t really making the pivot to ecommerce. In fact, the Changs were reluctant to hire anyone outside their insular world, even if those new hires might bring much needed insight and expertise. And as a person who has worked for some CEOs with some major hubris and big time ego who made bad decisions about their companies, well, I’m not surprised to hear this. Former employees told media outlets that many of the Changs’ hires were from their church or extended family, with little-to-no experience in anything they were responsible for managing. Erik Gordon, a management expert at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, told the NYT times in 2019 (regarding Forever 21 and its private ownership), “On the founder side, this hubris thing is pretty common, but it’s particularly deadly if you’ve been successful for a long time. They didn’t have a board of directors to give them a reality check, they didn’t have equity analysts to give them a reality check. You can live in your self-created bubble for a lot longer, but then the bubble pops.”
Reading that quote gave me flashbacks to Nasty Gal, which was in a similar situation…early success that no one really learned anything from. And so as things got more difficult, the wrong people were brought in to fix things, and so, nothing was fixed.
And things were amazing for Forever 21 for a long time. They expanded into men’s and kids. They led the charge into plus sizing (which was so fucking smart of them). In the late 00s, they launched a brand that was designed to be a more “premium” version of Forever 21, Heritage 1981. It was kinda like you put Abercrombie, American Eagle, and Free People into a blender. Most clothing was made of natural fibers. The stores had faux-weathered wooden doors, wood-framed windows, hardwood floors, and quasi vintage art on the walls. The merchandising was a watered down version of a Free People store. Please raise your hand if you remember this place!
In 2017, the company launched Riley Rose, a beauty concept. Filled with a mixture of legit makeup brands and Forever 21 makeup and accessories, the stores looked great. They seemed like a good idea in a Sephora world. But they just didn’t work with the Forever 21 business model. The company was used to getting any product cost it wanted, and the makeup companies were like “nope, that’s not how it works.” So Riley Rose lost brands pretty fast.
That year–2017–was pretty bad for Forever 21. Riley Rose was kind of a flop. The company’s international expansion was a disaster because no one did any research into local norms (like knowing that most stores are closed on Sundays in Germany). Zara and H+M were doing fast fashion in a better way than Forever 21 all around the world. Somehow the company bought too little inventory that year, then bought too much (and the wrong stuff) the next year. By 2019, the company owed $347 million to its vendors.
When I moved to the Highland Park neighborhood in LA, I lived near the original Forever 21 store (the first location ever), whose sign said “Fashion 21.” It felt like a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting one of the architects of fast fashion. Inside, it felt like any store at the mall and it smelled strongly of plastic. Either the magic wasn’t there or I was no longer susceptible to it.
When Nasty Gal went bankrupt and I became unemployed, I applied for all of the retail companies in LA: Ross Dress For Less, Guess, Lucky Jeans, and Forever 21. A month later, I was in final interviews with Ross, Forever 21, and a startup in Portland called Wildfang. Dustin (then my fiance) and I weighed our options. We didn’t want to leave LA because we loved it there. But we also didn’t want me to work at Forever 21. And Ross was super corporate (and I would have to wear business clothes, which I did not own). Wildfang meant leaving LA, but it might be cooler.
I ended up taking the job in Portland and ultimately, it was the worst job ever. It’s hard to say if Forever 21 would have been worse.
But already then, Forever 21 was fading into the background. Every other brand had adopted the fast fashion model, and they were doing a better job. And when it came to super cheap clothes, brands like Boohoo and Fashion Nova were taking over. This was years before SHEIN would defeat all of them.
At some point, I kind of forgot about Forever 21. Last year, I was working on a series about SHEIN. This forced me to spend time scrolling the SHEIN site. And wouldn’t you know it…the most expensive clothing for sale on the SHEIN website was from Forever 21. Desperate to be saved from bankruptcy, Forever 21 had partnered with the company that was destroying it once and for all.
I laughed and laughed, just thinking about Forever 21 being the more expensive brand of the two. And then I felt sick, thinking about how Forever 21 had convinced an entire generation of millennials that clothing could be “disposable.” And here was SHEIN doubling down on that, introducing new generations to even cheaper, more disappointing outfits.
But this partnership was all part of Forever 21’s plan to save itself. In 2020, the company sold all of its assets to three different companies: Simon Property Group (a mall slumlord that had a lot to lose if Forever 21 closed all of its stores), Brookfield Properties (also had a lot to lose if all of those stores closed), and Authentic Brands Group, which buys all kind of brands and then licenses the rights to other manufacturers to use the brand names. Their portfolio of brands includes Aeropostale, Billabong, Barneys, Eddie Bauer, Frye, Ted Baker and so much more. A new joint venture between Simon and Authentic Brands–called SPARC–took over the management of Forever 21. Brookfield sold its stake in Forever 21 in 2021. And then in 2023, SHEIN and SPARC Group entered into a joint venture, making SHEIN part owner of Forever 21. But business just kept dying for Forever 21. Too many leases in dying malls, an inability to compete with online retailers like SHEIN, Temu, and Amazon–who were bringing clothes factory direct to customers at much lower prices.
And now, this year, Forever 21 is officially done.
No, I won’t miss Forever 21. But like many of us who worry about the future of our planet and its people, I will continue to spend a lot of time thinking about how Forever 21 changed our habits and the entire business of making and selling fashion. It opened the door for ultra fast fashion like SHEIN. It let us buy new clothes constantly, knowing that we would only be able to wear them a few times. It offered us prices that were unnaturally low (and the math never MATHed). At first, it felt weird to us. Until eventually, it felt normal.
Now we have to do the hard work of undoing that. And I know we can…but it will not be easy.
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Thumbprint is Detroit’s only fair trade marketplace, located in the historic Eastern Market. Our small business specializes in products handmade by empowered women in South Africa making a living wage creating things they love like hand painted candles and ceramics! We also carry a curated assortment of sustainable/natural locally made goods. Thumbprint is a great gift destination for both the special people in your life and for yourself! Browse our online store at thumbprintdetroit.com and find us on instagram @thumbprintdetroit.
Picnicwear: a slow fashion brand, ethically made by hand from vintage and deadstock materials – most notably, vintage towels! Founder, Dani, has worked in the industry as a fashion designer for over 10 years, but started Picnicwear in response to her dissatisfaction with the industry’s shortcomings. Picnicwear recently moved to rural North Carolina where all their clothing and accessories are now designed and cut, but the majority of their sewing is done by skilled garment workers in NYC. Their customers take comfort in knowing that all their sewists are paid well above NYC minimum wage. Picnicwear offers minimal waste and maximum authenticity: Future Vintage over future garbage.
Shift Clothing, out of beautiful Astoria, Oregon, with a focus on natural fibers, simple hardworking designs, and putting fat people first. Discover more at shiftwheeler.com
High Energy Vintage is a fun and funky vintage shop located in Somerville, MA, just a few minutes away from downtown Boston. They offer a highly curated selection of bright and colorful clothing and accessories from the 1940s-1990s for people of all genders. Husband-and-wife duo Wiley & Jessamy handpick each piece for quality and style, with a focus on pieces that transcend trends and will find a home in your closet for many years to come! In addition to clothing, the shop also features a large selection of vintage vinyl and old school video games. Find them on instagram @ highenergyvintage, online at highenergyvintage.com, and at markets in and around Boston.
St. Evens is an NYC-based vintage shop that is dedicated to bringing you those special pieces you’ll reach for again and again. More than just a store, St. Evens is dedicated to sharing the stories and history behind the garments. 10% of all sales are donated to a different charitable organization each month. New vintage is released every Thursday at wearStEvens.com, with previews of new pieces and more brought to you on Instagram at @wear_st.evens.
Deco Denim is a startup based out of San Francisco, selling clothing and accessories that are sustainable, gender fluid, size inclusive and high quality–made to last for years to come. Deco Denim is trying to change the way you think about buying clothes. Founder Sarah Mattes wants to empower people to ask important questions like, “Where was this made? Was this garment made ethically? Is this fabric made of plastic? Can this garment be upcycled and if not, can it be recycled?” Signup at decodenim.com to receive $20 off your first purchase. They promise not to spam you and send out no more than 3 emails a month, with 2 of them surrounding education or a personal note from the Founder. Find them on Instagram as @deco.denim.
The Pewter Thimble Is there a little bit of Italy in your soul? Are you an enthusiast of pre-loved decor and accessories? Bring vintage Italian style — and history — into your space with The Pewter Thimble (@thepewterthimble). We source useful and beautiful things, and mend them where needed. We also find gorgeous illustrations, and make them print-worthy. Tarot cards, tea towels and handpicked treasures, available to you from the comfort of your own home. Responsibly sourced from across Rome, lovingly renewed by fairly paid artists and artisans, with something for every budget. Discover more at thepewterthimble.com
Blank Cass, or Blanket Coats by Cass, is focused on restoring, renewing, and reviving the history held within vintage and heirloom textiles. By embodying and transferring the love, craft, and energy that is original to each vintage textile into a new garment, I hope we can reteach ourselves to care for and mend what we have and make it last. Blank Cass lives on Instagram @blank_cass and a website will be launched soon at blankcass.com.
Vagabond Vintage DTLV is a vintage clothing, accessories & decor reselling business based in Downtown Las Vegas. Not only do we sell in Las Vegas, but we are also located throughout resale markets in San Francisco as well as at a curated boutique called Lux and Ivy located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jessica, the founder & owner of Vagabond Vintage DTLV, recently opened the first IRL location located in the Arts District of Downtown Las Vegas on August 5th. The shop has a strong emphasis on 60s & 70s garments, single stitch tee shirts & dreamy loungewear. Follow them on instagram, @vagabondvintage.dtlv and keep an eye out for their website coming fall of 2022.
Country Feedback is a mom & pop record shop in Tarboro, North Carolina. They specialize in used rock, country, and soul and offer affordable vintage clothing and housewares. Do you have used records you want to sell? Country Feedback wants to buy them! Find us on Instagram @countryfeedbackvintageandvinyl or head downeast and visit our brick and mortar. All are welcome at this inclusive and family-friendly record shop in the country!
Located in Whistler, Canada, Velvet Underground is a “velvet jungle” full of vintage and second-hand clothes, plants, a vegan cafe and lots of rad products from other small sustainable businesses. Our mission is to create a brand and community dedicated to promoting self-expression, as well as educating and inspiring a more sustainable and conscious lifestyle both for the people and the planet. Find us on Instagram @shop_velvetunderground or online at www.shopvelvetunderground.com
Selina Sanders, a social impact brand that specializes in up-cycled clothing, using only reclaimed, vintage or thrifted materials: from tea towels, linens, blankets and quilts. Sustainably crafted in Los Angeles, each piece is designed to last in one’s closet for generations to come. Maximum Style; Minimal Carbon Footprint.
Salt Hats: purveyors of truly sustainable hats. Hand blocked, sewn and embellished in Detroit, Michigan.
Republica Unicornia Yarns: Hand-Dyed Yarn and notions for the color-obsessed. Made with love and some swearing in fabulous Atlanta, Georgia by Head Yarn Wench Kathleen. Get ready for rainbows with a side of Giving A Damn! Republica Unicornia is all about making your own magic using small-batch, responsibly sourced, hand-dyed yarns and thoughtfully made notions. Slow fashion all the way down and discover the joy of creating your very own beautiful hand knit, crocheted, or woven pieces. Find us on Instagram @republica_unicornia_yarns and at www.republicaunicornia.com.
Cute Little Ruin is an online shop dedicated to providing quality vintage and secondhand clothing, vinyl, and home items in a wide range of styles and price points. If it’s ethical and legal, we try to find a new home for it! Vintage style with progressive values. Find us on Instagram at @CuteLittleRuin.
