On the streets of a small Spanish town, an evening walk with his mother would leave a mark on a boy’s life that decades later would reshape the global fashion industry. With no food left at home, the woman
approached a grocery shop seeking essentials on credit. The shopkeeper refused, insisting the earlier dues be cleared first. The helplessness in his mother’s eyes stayed with the child. That boy was Amancio Ortega, the man who later went on to launch the brand Zara and redefine how the world buys clothes.
Born into a modest family, Ortega’s childhood was shaped by hardship. His father worked as a railway employee, and the family struggled to make ends meet. Financial pressure forced Ortega to drop out of school at just 14. He took up work as a delivery boy at a local clothing shop that stitched garments for affluent customers, ferrying finished clothes to their homes. It was here that his education in fashion truly began. Ortega spent hours observing how fabric was cut, stitched and transformed into garments that carried status and aspiration.
During this time, he noticed a stark divide in the fashion world. Designer clothes showcased on ramps were priced far beyond the reach of ordinary people. Ortega began to question why fashion had to remain the privilege of the wealthy. The industry’s traditional model only deepened the gap, designs took months to be produced and reach stores, by which time trends had already shifted.
Determined to change this, Ortega took his first entrepreneurial steps with limited resources. Working from a small room at home with his wife Rosalia Mera, he began producing handmade nighties and bathrobes. The designs were inspired by expensive brands that most women could only admire through shop windows. Priced affordably, the garments found instant acceptance. For nearly a decade, Ortega worked on a small scale, reinvesting profits and quietly building capital.
In 1975, he opened his first store in La Coruna, Spain. The name was almost ‘Zorba’, but with a bar and a popular film already using it, Ortega rearranged the letters to create ‘Zara’. The store marked the beginning of a radical idea of a fashion that was stylish, current and accessible.
What set Zara apart was speed. Unlike traditional fashion houses that released collections twice a year, Zara continuously refreshed its offerings. Ortega understood that consumer tastes changed rapidly. He instructed his teams to track emerging trends and translate them into store-ready designs within weeks. While competitors took up to six months, Zara managed the entire process in about 15 days. This approach would later be termed ‘fast fashion’.
Zara also spent little on advertising, relying instead on prime store locations and constantly changing collections to attract customers. Limited stock of each design created a sense of urgency; if a customer liked something, it had to be bought immediately or risk disappearing from shelves. The strategy fuelled rapid growth and consumer loyalty.
As Zara expanded globally under Ortega’s parent company, Inditex, it also courted controversy. Leading designers accused the brand of copying their creations. Ortega remained unfazed. His focus, he maintained, was simple: to make people look good without paying luxury prices. Zara’s designers travelled across cities and continents, observing street fashion, clubs and social gatherings. New trends were quickly sketched, produced in Spain and shipped worldwide, often overnight.
The results were extraordinary. Zara grew into one of the world’s largest fashion retailers, with a presence in almost every major city. Ortega, once a school dropout and delivery boy, became one of the richest individuals on the planet. According to Forbes, his net worth stands at $143.5 billion, placing him among the world’s wealthiest and, at one point, ahead of Bill Gates.
