Zara (clothing)

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A Zara store in ifc, Central, Hong Kong.

Zara is the flagship chain store for the Spanish Inditex Group, which also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Stradivarius and Bershka. The group is headquartered in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, where the first Zara store opened in 1975. Today, Zara is probably the world's fastest growing retailer with over 986 stores around the world in 70 countries (three times the 2000 figure). In March 2006, the group overtook Sweden's Hennes & Mauritz to become Europe's largest fashion retailer.

Zara has a unique business model that has enabled it to expand and compete with quality brands at affordable prices. For instance, it is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks ^[1] to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared with a nine-month industry average, and launches around 10,000 new designs each year. Zara has resisted the industry-wide trend towards transferring production to low-cost countries. Perhaps its most unusual strategy was its policy of zero advertising; the company preferred to invest a percentage of revenues in opening new stores instead.

Zara was described by Louis Vuitton fashion director Daniel Piette as "possibly the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world".