Once in fashion, near the beginning, but not first of all (8)
I believe the answer is:
formerly
'all' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adverbs. Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'once in fashion near the beginning but not first' is the wordplay.
'once in fashion' becomes 'form' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'near the' says to put letters next to each other.
'beginning' becomes 'early' ('early' can be similar in meaning to 'beginning').
'but not' is a deletion indicator.
'first' becomes 'a'.
'early' with 'a' removed is 'erly'.
'form'+'erly'='FORMERLY'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for formerly that I've seen before include "Hitherto" , "Previously, before this time" , "In the past" , "At one time" .)