Rest in Peace, Forever 21

You never forget your first style awakening — the formative fashion experience that catapults you into the world of clothes and opens up to the possibilities of personal style. Mine happened at 11 years old at the Las Vegas Fashion Show Mall, inside the walls of Forever 21.

It was 2011, Avril Lavigne had just released “What the Hell” and I was an angsty tween on a family road trip through Nevada. We stopped into the Vegas mega-retail complex, a sprawling shopping, dining and entertainment centre that consumes two million square feet on the city’s famous strip. As a kid who loved the mall, it was my mecca, and chief among its massive stores was a multi-storey Forever 21. Coming from Canada, I had never heard of this place before, but I was, to put things mildly, immediately mystified.

To a soft-spoken sixth grader like me, Forever 21 — which filed for bankruptcy on March 16 — offered individuality. Unlike the monotonous name-brand logo tyranny that dominated my school’s style scene, Forever 21 presented a shopping experience based entirely on personal taste. As I scoured the sea of clothing bathed in fluorescent light, I spotted distinct styles, varying aesthetics, and pieces that made me feel more like me. A sense of agency was even built into the name. I was deeply romanced by the idea that my middle-schooler self could tap into the allure of being a 21-year-old with unwavering confidence and a cool wardrobe.

Suffice it to say my life was changed that day. I left armed with a bright yellow plastic Forever-21-branded bag and a slight superiority complex, feeling like I had just cracked the clothing code. And I wasn’t alone. Founded in 1984 by South Korean immigrants, Forever 21 pioneered the now-ubiquitous fast fashion model. It set itself apart by tapping into the latest trends quicker than its competitors and at a much lower price. By the 2010s, it was a pillar of teen apparel, and it soon went global, erecting 200 spacious stores — 70 of which were 35,000 square feet or larger. In 2014, its success peaked, hitting 4 billion U.S. dollars in yearly profit.

For coming-of-age customers with tight budgets, its sprawling spaces were part of its allure. Whenever I was visiting Toronto as a teen, I would flock to the now-defunct Forever 21 store at the Eaton Centre, looking for a quick-find going-out top, a sundress for summer or just something to do with my afternoon. Forever 21 was a relic of the mall era, predicated on a promise of foot traffic. It was a dream come true for droves of teens who went to retail plazas simply to wander around. It added to the magic of meandering, an activity that has been increasingly replaced by scrolling in the digital sphere.

With the rapid decline of third spaces and the obsoleteness of mall culture, Forever 21 wasn’t quick enough to expand into e-commerce. Online retailer Shein was faster and cheaper, with even more inventory available. In 2023, Forever 21 attempted to get in on Shein’s model with a partnership. But eventually, it was beaten by its own mass-producing game.

In 2025, Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy (the second time in six years) and announced the closure of its U.S. stores. (In 2019, it shut down all of its Canadian locations.) Today, Forever 21 is officially dying, and I feel conflicted. As I’ve grown to learn more about shopping locally and mindfully, I, too, ditched the store and its wasteful business model. But the demise of Forever 21 doesn’t mean that the industry is cracking down on fast fashion. Instead, e-commerce giants — those with never-ending scrollable shopping pages and alarming ethical murkiness — have monopolized the market.

In light of the Forever 21 bankruptcy news, my dad texted my sisters and me with a tone of bereavement. “I feel like even I have an emotional attachment to that store because you guys loved it so much,” he said. Together, we mourned the loss of an institution that helped us graduate from girlhood to grown-up self-expression. Forever 21 was far from perfect, but flipping through its racks for the first time made me feel alive. Today, I can’t help but grieve for future 11-year-olds who won’t get to have that.