Fast fashion is in party mode

last two months it has been busy like the weekend every day,” sighs a sales assistant at a large Zara store on Tauentzienstrasse, a shopping street in the centre of Berlin. On the Tuesday after the long Pentecost weekend about a dozen ladies were queuing for the fitting room, each carrying several items, many of them in hot pink or canary yellow, colours this season. They don’t seem to be deterred by Zara’s higher garment prices. At least not yet.Shoppers are still “revenge buying” to make up for all the time when shops were closed and socialising banned amid waves of covid-19. After grafting pajama bottoms onto their legs over the past two years, buyers are snapping up office and party wear. On June 8th Inditex, which own Zara, Bershka and Massimo Dutti, among other brands, reported glittery results for its latest quarter. Revenues rose by 36% year on year, to €6.7bn ($7.2bn), surpassing levels before the pandemic. Net profit jumped by 80% year on year. Online sales dipped compared with the same period in 2021, when the internet was the only place to shop for clothes owing to lockdowns in America and Europe. But the decline of 6% was much slower than expected, which suggests that people have got used to buying garb on the internet. In another boost, China is reopening after the latest bout of lockdowns. Only four of Inditex’s Chinese outlets remain closed, down from 67 in the three months to April. &, Inditex’s Swedish fast-fashion rival, is expected to report similarly perky results on June 15th.