History & culture

A retail business model built on rapidly translating runway and trend ideas into cheap, mass-produced clothing with quick turnaround, expanding globally from the 1990s alongside globalized garment manufacturing.

A British government campaign launched in 1943 during wartime rationing that taught households to repair, alter, and repurpose existing clothing rather than buy new garments.

Clothing manufactured in standard sizes for immediate purchase, as opposed to custom-made garments; it grew from 19th-century military uniform production and expanded rapidly with department stores in the 20th century.

An approach to clothing design, production, and consumption aimed at minimizing environmental harm and social exploitation across a garment's life cycle, gaining wider industry attention from the 2000s onward.

A manufacturing workplace characterized by long hours, low pay, and unsafe conditions, historically associated with garment production since the Industrial Revolution and a continuing concern in global fashion supply chains.