Forever 21 was young once and ready to change the world, one improbably inexpensive top at a time. It helped popularize fast fashion in the 2000s by making quick-turnaround knockoffs of runway looks and then selling them cheap in chaotic mall stores. Along with H&M, Zara and Topshop, it inspired much hand-wringing over how fast fashion was ecologically indefensible7m7-reveillonpg, with viral videos showing fast-fashion waste piled up in veritable mountains (scaled by goats!) along the shores of Ghana.

So it must be a good thing that Forever 21 is bankrupt and closing 350 or so stores, right? Maybe this latest generation of under-21s is finally done chasing empty trends with disposable looks? Surveys show that 63 percent of Gen Z-ers prefer to support brands that share their values, and 72 percent consider sustainability an important factor in purchasing decisions.

And yet, despite the havoc fast fashion has brought to the planet, particularly the global south, nothing has stopped it, or probably will. Forever 21 died not because of consumer consciousness raising but because of the bottom line: It couldn’t keep up with even faster fashion. In its bankruptcy filing, it blames competition from its online-only competitors Shein and Temu, both with roots in China — sellers of ultra-fast fashion — for its demise.

The plaintiffs — who include Wendy Davis,66cassino a former Democratic state senator, along with a Biden campaign staff member and the bus driver — also testified, saying that the rolling road protest had been frightening and intimidating.

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His lawyers admitted that he had carried out the shooting, but they said he was so unwell at the time that he could not know that what he was doing was wrong.

It’s not that people don’t want to be ethical consumers. It’s just that sustainability in fashion is not something most people can afford if they still want to dress in the latest style.

“Unfortunately, I think it’s pretty compelling to buy a $7 pair of jeans if you’re not rich,” Ken Pucker, professor of practice at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the former chief operating officer of Timberland, told me last year. “To a consumer, there’s no real functional benefit of sustainable fashion. Just perhaps a psychic benefit that they’re helping the planet.”

In the absence of regulation, the onus is on consumers to shop sustainably. And many shoppers have been trained to get their dopamine hit of a new ’fit for far less than anything that, say, the upmarket upcycled brand Bode can offer.

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