There’s only one place on earth where you’ll find a dinosaur wearing jewellery, a woman modelling a dress in a swimming pool and a lady crawling with boots on her hands… Zara.
Today marks 50 years of the beloved high street retailer, which first opened its doors in A Coruña, Spain, before conquering Europe, North America, Australia, South Africa and, of course, the UK.
The Zara empire has grown, despite a notoriously user-unfriendly website – or perhaps because of it.
Over the years, shoppers have been trolled by shoes covered in melted ice cream, one model holding a giant mozzarella sandwich, another dragging a bare Christmas tree across the floor.
There’s even an Instagram account, Awkward Zara, dedicated to showcasing the brand’s most bizarre photoshoots, with fans left wondering why half the merchandise is so often difficult to see.
And yet we buy (and buy again), at a time when so many of Zara’s competitors have fallen…
Why we keep going back to Zara…
Laugh at the styling all you want, Zara knows how to create clothing everyone wants. You only have to look back to 2019, the year of ‘The Zara Dress’.
The black and white polka dot number went so viral, it garnered its own Instagram page and saw brides sashaying down the aisle in the ubiquitous, calf-length hemline.
Then in 2022, Zara spawned a new dress of the moment which took the country by storm. The £32.99 Printed Mini Dress featured button fastening, a collar, long-sleeves, and a short-but-wearable skater-style skirt.
For stylist Clare Chambers, aka The Personal Brand Stylist, there’s nothing quite like a Zara. ‘It’s key pieces are like gold dust and I end up on a mission to get them for my clients,’ she tells Metro.
‘There’s also nothing like a Zara blazer for me. Yes the brand has staples, but it’s just great at picking out the key looks or items from the runway and creating an iteration of it that’s affordable and obtainable for the everyday person.’
Even Kate Middleton is known to dabble, most notably wearing a blue Zara dress the day after her wedding in 2011, cause it to sell out globally within 24 hours.
More recently she was spotted re-wearing a black & white plaid Zara dress with a pussy bow and v-neckline to a children’s hospice near Cardiff.
Meghan Markle, meanwhile, has worn Zara rompers to the Invictus Games, while Melania Trump was criticised for wearing the brand’s coat with the slogan ‘I really don’t care, do u?’ to a migrant child detention centre in Texas.
Other celebrities who wear Zara include Taylor Swift, Emily Ratajkowski, Selena Gomez, Sophie Turner and even Queen Letizia of Spain.
And Clare says there’s a reason they all shop there. ‘It makes celebs and the likes of Kate Middleton seem accessible and relatable,’ she explains. ‘That’s why stylists like me use Zara because it’s sophisticated, polished and attainable.’
The stylist always pulls Zara pieces for her super rich clients, regardless of budget. ‘While I might get them a Chloe bag I’ll always weave in pieces from Zara because they’re high fashion pieces with good price points,’ she says.
Zara and the death of the high street
Fashion brands like Jack Wills, American Apparel, House of Fraser and Forever 21 are falling out favour, recording low profits or disappearing all together.
Yet Zara (or its parent company, Inditex) reported £6.4 billion in pre-tax profit in 2024, up 10% from the previous year.
Martin Corcoran, CEO of retail performance marketing company Summit, says there are a few simple reasons why the brand is bucking the trend.
‘I’ve got plenty of Zara stuff, as has my wife, and this is because the brand hits 80% of consumers in the fashion market,’ he tells Metro.
‘They’re on top of trends, they have a good store footprint and have positioned themselves near more premium brands. Being an international brand helps because if one market is down, you’re often up in another.’
Stylist Clare adds that the website modelling its clothes in rather ridiculous ways is definitely a gimmick, and it works.
‘Any press is good press,’ she says. ‘They get people talking about the brand.’
Can it last another 50 years?
Since opening its doors on 9th May 1975 the brand has dominated the fashion market, but will it still be part of our high street for the next half a century?
Zara isn’t immune to controversy, which has earned it some backlash. In 2023 it was criticised for it’s ad campaign ‘The Jacket’ which featured a model against a backdrop that people claimed resembled the destruction in Gaza.
The brand claimed the photos were taken before the Israel-Gaza conflict began and labelled it a ‘misunderstanding’.
Back in 2011, Zara’s Brazillian production was found to have ‘slave-like’ conditions, with workers pulling 16 to 19 hour shifts and some as young as 14 years old. However Zara claimed this was a result of ‘unauthorised outsourcing’.
It’s faced backlash for its sizing too, despite carrying up to an XXL (UK 18) many have found its clothes to be too small for the corresponding size.
TikToker Zoe Towell said she no longer shops in Zara because as a size 12, even the XL dresses don’t fit.
Despite this, the brand remains popular, and Martin explains the popularity of its products and prices allows Zara to course correct and carry on after any missteps.
He also doesn’t see the revival of Topshop – once a millennial Mecca and fashion titan offering a similar experience to Zara – as competition to the Spanish brand.
Martin says: ‘Topshop is starting at the bottom of the ladder. Zara’s competition is Uniqlo, Mango and H&M, which are established.
‘If it’s going to be worried about anyone in Europe it will be Shein, which has paused its ad spending in America and redirected its efforts on Europe to start heavily competing here.’
But what Clare says is unrivalled is Zara’s item quality for price, meaning they’re likely to be around for a long time.
And we have to agree. Sure when we’re dress shopping on the website the models might be holding dinosaurs and polar bears, and be twisted into angles we couldn’t even imagine, but we love it anyway.
If it’s good enough for the likes of The Princess of Wales, it’s certainly good enough for us.
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