Tiny Nineties shades? Woven wicker clutches? Those mildly menacing Labubu charms that glare out from the handle of your bag, clenching their pointy plastic teeth? Forget them. From the fields of Glastonbury to the stands at Royal Ascot to the subterranean inferno of the Central line, there’s one standout accessory that has taken this summer by storm.
I’m referring, of course, to the humble battery-powered portable fan, the little device that has become ubiquitous over the past month or so, as sweaty Brits try desperately to deal with high temperatures that our infrastructure just wasn’t built to withstand. It’s small enough to stash in a tote as you rush out of the house in the morning, and it emits the sort of weirdly comforting white noise that helps you ascend to another level of zen during your commute.
You’ll see these handy bits of tech in train carriages, at office desks and in pub gardens, as their devotees bask in the temporary respite offered by a slightly cooler blast of air, soothing their tomato-red faces and dispersing some of the perspiration that’s started to take up residence on their upper lip. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the wind machine effect tends to give long hair a bit of a zhush, too, so you can briefly pretend you’re in a Mariah Carey video when you’re in fact standing at a bus stop looking like a wilted houseplant.
The handheld fan is not a new invention. When I cast my mind back to primary school, I can remember a craze for colourful versions with soft plastic blades made from balloon-like material (they could still cause a bit of pain if you held them too close to your skin, which, being primary school kids, we obviously did; we also spoke into them to “hilariously” make our little voices sound robotic). But the 2025 iteration is a much more sophisticated beast.
Unlike the ones you might recall from childhood, the miniature fan of the moment tends to have a case around the blades, to prevent your hair or clothes getting tangled up. Some of them are foldable, so you can fit them into the tiniest handbag or pocket. Some can be plugged into your phone’s charging socket. And some have built-in flashlights, in case you want to add an element of disco to your Tube journey.
Inevitably, they’re available in a whole range of colourways, and if you want to amp up the twee factor, you can invest in a fan with cutesy animal ears and a smiling face emblazoned on the centre of its motor. Pandas, cats, frogs – just name the tiny creature and you’ll be able to find some form of equally tiny ventilation device fashioned in its image. The true tech pioneers, though, seem to be opting for wearable fans that rest on your neck, gently circulating air around your face; the aesthetic is somewhere between off-duty athlete and televangelist shouting into a headset.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when the mini-fan became such a summer must-have. But over the past half decade or so, their popularity seems to have grown and grown. New research from Material Focus, the non-profit group that campaigns for better recycling for waste electrical and electronic equipment (a category also known by the slightly unfortunate acronym Weee) has found that British people have bought around 7.1 million mini fans over the last 12 months. Google searches for the products, meanwhile, were up by 16 per cent in May compared to the same period last year.
British people have bought around 7.1 million mini fans over the last 12 months
And it can hardly be a coincidence that they’ve become increasingly ubiquitous as our summers have got hotter, for longer. The Met Office recently pointed out a “clear upward trend” in the number of days in June with temperatures hitting above 30C, for instance, and also published a study last month revealing that the chances of UK temperatures exceeding 40C are “accelerating at pace”. Our public spaces and transport systems just weren’t made to account for such high temperatures, so it’s no wonder that we’re trying to make the experience of, well, merely existing during summertime slightly less swampy.
There is a slightly bleak irony, though, in the fact that we’re stuck attempting to deal with our changing climate by… buying into products that aren’t necessarily all that great for the planet. Portable fans fall under the umbrella of “fast tech”, cheap, even novelty devices that are often tough to repair and tend to get chucked in the bin at the end of the season.
Think of it as the tech world’s equivalent of fast fashion. Material Focus has estimated that around 3.5 million fans have been discarded or forgotten over the past year. And because these products often feature plastics and electronic components, they can be especially difficult to properly recycle. When you take into account that many of the novelty designs are being sold on massive online platforms that are notoriously unfussed about the environmental impact of their supply chain and delivery process, they don’t seem quite so cool.
It’s all worth bearing in mind when you find your eyes inexorably drawn to the candy-coloured fan with the endearingly cute animal ears during your next unbearably sticky train journey. The tiny novelty fan might be alluring, sure, but do you really need one that matches your outfit when you already have a few knocking around in your junk drawer at home?
