7 Things You Never Knew About ZARA

Zara, a Spanish retailer is famous for its fast fashion,  products include clothing, accessories, shoes, swimwear, beauty, and perfumes. One of the most famous brands of the world in the fast fashion segment. Here are 7 facts you never knew about the brand.

1.Zara was originally named Zorba.

The store was named Zorba after the classic film Zorba the Greek, but when they discovered there was a bar with the same name two blocks away, they renamed it “Zara”.

2.Amancio Ortega, Zara’s founder, is the 6th richest man in the world. (Forbes, 2020)

• Earlier, in 2015 he briefly knocked out Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world.
• Every day, Ortega eats lunch in Zara’s staff cafeteria. Quite modest.
• Until 1999, there were no pictures of Amancio Ortega available.
• Zara’s founder and CEO prefers to maintain a low profile. He dislikes giving interviews.
• No one knows when his birthday is, and he likes a comfortable lifestyle, wearing the same blue blazer, white shirt, and grey trousers every day.

5.Sewing one women’s shirt takes 38 mins.

Each worker is timed. A woman keeps track with a stopwatch to ensure everything runs smoothly, and it’s called “working to the minute,” which means one shirt should take 38 minutes to complete; if it takes longer, the plant begins to lose money.

4. Even Royals wear Zara. It is a favorite of Kate Middleton.

People notice everything Middleton wears, because when she wears Zara clothing, it sells out almost instantly after she is captured wearing it.

5.Zara is committed to eliminate toxic chemicals from its supply chain and products and thus signed the Greenpeace Zero-Discharge Commitment in 2012. Zara was the eighth company to pledge to remove all toxic chemical releases from its supply chains.

6. ZARA launches about 12,000 new designs per year.

Zara invented Fast- Fashion. In just 1-2 weeks, the company can have a new design created and distributed. Their business model revolves around creating new looks as quickly as possible while keeping a close eye on the runway for inspiration.

7. Zara spends little money on advertisements and prefers to open stores near high-end retailers.

There are over 2,000 stores in 88 countries. The more places your brand is available, the more likely it is to create brand recognition and awareness. Advertising accounts for just around 0.3 percent of sales of Zara. Zara’s strategy for choosing where to open stores is to look for high-street shopping areas in major cities. It is very common to find a Zara store next to big brands like Gucci, Prada, H&M etc.

Author: Lipika Sharma
A practical and well-oriented law student, pursuing her BA- LLB (Hons.) degree from Fairfield Institute of Management and Technology, GGSIPU. She is highly inclined towards Constitutional law, Criminal law, ADR, IPR, and Family law. However, she is keen on exploring emerging fields of law