40 Fun Facts About Zara

Which Anthony Quinn film gave Zara's founders their first shop name, already taken by a nearby bar?

Zorba the Greek gave them the name Zorba, but a bar two blocks away already used it, so the couple rearranged the sign's letters, reportedly with a spare 'a', to spell Zara.

Which First Lady wore a Zara jacket with a dismissive message on its back to visit detained migrant children?

Melania Trump later said the message on the jacket was aimed at the people and media criticising her, not at the separated families she was visiting.

Which pattern covered the white Zara dress of summer 2019 so popular it gained its own Instagram account?

Polka dots made the loose £39.99 dress easy to recognise, and stylist Faye Oakenfull's account @Hot4TheSpot received up to 200 sightings a day from followers.

Zara spends next to nothing on which standard retail cost, putting the money into opening new shops instead?

Advertising is almost absent from Zara's budget; its parent company relies on prime shop locations and window displays to pull shoppers in.

Zara's founder briefly became the world's richest person in 2015 by overtaking which tech billionaire?

Bill Gates was passed when shares in Zara's parent company peaked, lifting its founder's fortune to about $80 billion.

Zara's publicity-shy billionaire founder is known for refusing to wear which staple of business dress?

A tie is missing from his daily uniform of blue blazer, white shirt and grey trousers, none of which comes from Zara.

Lefties, the budget sister chain of Zara, takes its name from which English word?

Leftovers from earlier Zara seasons stocked the first shops, and Lefties has since grown into the budget arm of Zara's parent company.

Which British royal, married in an Alexander McQueen gown, has often worn Zara on official engagements?

Kate Middleton mixes Zara, Reiss and Hobbs with couture, and what she wears sells out so quickly that the rush has a name, the Kate effect.

Zara's founder bought Seattle's Troy Block offices, making him a landlord to which locally based giant?

Amazon uses the complex as part of its Seattle headquarters, one piece of a property portfolio that also includes Madrid's Torre Picasso skyscraper.

Zara's rapid production system borrowed the just-in-time approach designed by which Japanese carmaker?

Toyota's idea of making only what is needed, when it is needed, was borrowed by Zara, which can ship finished clothes to shops worldwide within days.

Which Spanish billionaire, who left school as a boy to work for a shirtmaker, founded Zara in 1975?

Amancio Ortega started as a shop hand at the shirtmaker Gala, where he learned to make clothes by hand, in the city where Zara later began.

Zara is the flagship of which parent company, the owner of Bershka and Pull&Bear too?

Inditex was created in 1985 as a holding company for Zara and its factories, and its name shortens the Spanish for Textile Design Industry.

Zara's founder is considered a pioneer of which clothing business model, also followed by Primark and Shein?

Fast fashion means copying catwalk trends quickly and cheaply; Zara reportedly needs only days to get a new design into its shops, against an industry average of six months.

Zara opened its first shop outside Spain in 1988 in which city in northern Portugal?

Porto came 13 years after the first Zara, and the United States and France followed within two years.

The first Zara opened in 1975 in which Spanish port, home to the Roman-built Tower of Hercules lighthouse?

A Coruña is where Zara's founder had moved as a boy, and the company never left: its head office is in the neighbouring town of Arteixo.

Zara co-founder Rosalía Mera left school at 11 to work in a shop and train for which trade?

Seamstress training paid off: when she died in 2013, Forbes ranked Mera as the world's richest self-made woman.

Which campaign group's 2012 Toxic Threads report pushed Zara to pledge to remove hazardous chemicals?

Greenpeace published the report as part of its Detox campaign, and Zara made its pledge just nine days later.

Zara's owner signed a safety accord for which country after a 2013 building collapse killed over 1,100 workers?

Bangladesh's Rana Plaza disaster led more than 200 clothing brands to sign a legally binding agreement with trade unions on fire and building safety.

In 2008 Zara's parent group overtook which US chain to become the world's biggest fashion retailer by sales?

Gap saw its quarterly sales fall 10 per cent to €2.17 billion while the Spanish group's rose to €2.22 billion, enough to change places at the top.

Which Italian-sounding label, owned by Zara's parent company, has a made-up name rather than a real designer's?

Massimo Dutti was founded in Spain in 1985 as a menswear shop, and the name does not belong to any designer.

Which young-fashion sister brand of Zara was bought from a Barcelona family in 1999?

Stradivarius, which puts a treble clef in its logo, was started in Barcelona in 1994 by the Triquell family, who sold 90 per cent of it to Zara's parent company for €108 million.

If a new Zara design fails to sell well, how soon is it pulled from the shops and replaced?

One week is all a design gets; in the early 2000s Zara expected a customer to call in 17 times a year when a typical Spanish chain expected three.

Through his foundation, Zara's founder gave Spain's public hospitals €320 million in 2017 to fight which disease?

Cancer detection and treatment machines, more than 290 of them, were bought with the gift, which was announced on his 81st birthday.

In 2024 Zara's founder set up a €100 million fund for victims of catastrophic floods around which Spanish city?

Valencia and its suburbs bore the brunt of the storm, known in Spain as a DANA, and the fund was aimed at the hardest-hit communities.

Marta, the Zara heiress who became chair of its parent company in 2022, started work in a Zara shop in which city?

London was where she had just finished a business degree, and she started on the shop floor of the Chelsea branch before moving through other departments.

Marta, heiress to the Zara fortune, wore a wedding gown by which Italian couture house when she married in 2018?

Valentino made the dress for her wedding to Carlos Torretta, so the bride whose family built Zara did not marry in Zara.

Zara's founder moved to the company's home city as a boy because of his father's job in which industry?

Railways employed his father, whose new posting uprooted the family, and the boy soon left school to work as a shop hand.

Before Zara existed, its founder started a company in 1963 to sell which quilted garments?

Bathrobes were the business of his firm Confecciones Goa, set up a dozen years before the first Zara shop opened.

In 2022 Zara surprised British shoppers by starting to charge £1.95 for which previously free service?

Returning online orders began to cost £1.95 in Britain in May 2022 for some purchases, and the fee reached Spain, Zara's home market, in February 2023.

On which big shopping day in 2022 did around 1,000 Zara shop assistants go on strike in the company's home city?

Black Friday was chosen to press for better pay, and the company agreed to a rise of €322 a month before a second walkout could happen.

Zara's parent company pledged in 2018 to drop which goat fibre after pressure from animal-welfare groups?

Mohair comes from the Angora goat, and reports of cruelty on South African farms led a string of high-street chains to stop selling it.

In 2017 Zara shoppers in which city found handwritten notes from unpaid factory workers in the pockets of clothes?

Istanbul workers had made the garments for a supplier, Bravo Tekstil, which went bankrupt owing them wages; Zara's owner said it would help compensate them.

Zara entered India in 2010 through a joint venture with the retail arm of which Indian conglomerate?

Tata's retail company Trent, whose name is short for Tata Retail Enterprise, agreed the venture in 2009, a year before the first Indian Zara opened.

Zara's founder funds scholarships sending Spanish teenagers for a school year to the USA or which other country?

Canada took 250 of the 500 students in the 2016/17 school year, with the other half going to American high schools.

After Zara sold its Russian business in 2023, its former shops there reopened under which new name?

Maag is the name the buyer, Fashion and More Management, gave the chain after Zara left Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Pablo Isla, who led Zara's parent company for 17 years, went on to chair which food multinational in 2025?

Nestlé had Isla on its board from 2018, while he was still running the group that owns Zara, and made him chairman three years after he left it.

In the Spanish of Zara's home country, the Z in the brand's name sounds closest to which English sound?

Th in thin is how Castilian Spanish pronounces the letter, so in Spain the name comes out roughly as THA-ra.

Zara Home opened its first shop in 2003 in which upmarket resort on Spain's Costa del Sol?

Marbella was only the start: Zara Home had 26 shops by the end of that first year and in 2007 became the first of the group's brands to sell on the internet.

Which sister brand of Zara launched in 2001 selling underwear and loungewear before turning to sportswear?

Oysho now calls itself a sports and leisure brand, and in 2022 it launched its own training app with fitness, Pilates and running programmes.

Which relief charity received €20 million from Zara's founder in 2012, the largest single donation in its history?

Caritas, the Catholic Church's relief network, received the money through his foundation, which he had set up in 2001.