Zara

Company Profile

Zara today is the largest and best-known brand of Inditex, one of the world's largest fashion retailers: its Woman, Man and Kids collections are designed at Arteixo, sold in Zara stores and on zara.com, and refreshed continuously in response to trends and customer feedback. Zara clothing is also widely carried by marketplace and resale sellers, so the shop box on this page searches Amazon and eBay listings for the brand, alongside the button above to Zara's official website. The company description this directory has long carried is kept in the profile below.

Zara SA is a Spanish fast fashion retailer based in Arteixo in Galicia. The company was founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera. It is the main brand of the Inditex group, described in its own materials as the world's largest apparel retailer. The fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterque.

Over the years, Zara has remained faithful to its core values, expressed simply in the same four key words that define all its stores: beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability. Nurturing a highly intimate relationship with its customers, Zara's designers respond instinctively to their changing needs, reacting to the latest trends and the constant feedback received across its Woman, Man and Kids collections, to deliver new ideas in the right place and at the right moment.

Zara is a Spanish clothes and accessories brand, and the flagship brand of the Inditex group. The Zara clothing brand keeps up with the latest fashion while aiming to maintain quality and remain affordable - the combination that made it the best-known name in fast fashion.

A First Store in A Coruna and the Fast-Fashion Model

Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store in 1975 in central A Coruna, Galicia, Spain. He initially planned to name the store Zorba, after the film Zorba the Greek, but a bar two blocks away already carried the name, so the letters prepared for the sign were rearranged into Zara. The first store featured low-priced lookalike versions of popular, higher-end fashions. During the 1980s Ortega changed the design, manufacturing and distribution process to reduce lead times and react to new trends more quickly - an approach he called "instant fashions" - using information technology and teams of designers rather than individuals.

The parent group took shape around the brand: Inditex (Industria de Diseno Textil, S.A.) was formed in 1985, listed on the Madrid stock exchange in 2001, and is chaired today by Marta Ortega, the founder's daughter, with Oscar Garcia Maceiras as chief executive. Zara itself is not separately listed - investors buy Inditex shares (BMAD: ITX). Zara sells primarily through its own stores and zara.com, but its clothing is also widely carried by marketplace and resale sellers, so this profile keeps the marketplace shop box below the snapshot, alongside the button to Zara's official website.

Photos