Zara went against conventional wisdom by sourcing a lot of its clothes closer to home and changing products much more frequently. That meant it could respond much faster to the latest trends and drop new items into stores every week. Just over half of its clothes are made in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey.
Zara's success lies in its ability to work with a wide range of manufacturers across the globe. While it has some of its manufacturing in Spain, it also works with partners in countries like China, Turkey, and India to produce its vast array of stylish garments.
The Zara brand story. Zara was founded by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera in 1975 as a family business in downtown Galicia in the northern part of Spain. Its first store featured low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing and fashion.
Yes. Bangalore is a key apparel hub in India, known for producing high-quality wovens and formalwear 4 for global brands like Zara. Bangalore-based manufacturers work on Zara's premium and structured garments 5, leveraging their skilled labor and advanced infrastructure to meet the brand's exacting standards.
Zara is much older than Shein; it was founded in 1975 in Spain by Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera. And unlike Shein, Zara had always aimed to be a fast fashion brand. From its inception, it became a hit among consumers by offering low-cost versions of popular and expensive clothing.
If you love Zara's stylish aesthetic, you'll feel at home at Mango. This Spanish brand is known for its sleek silhouettes and contemporary designs. Mango's pieces are elevated but still down-to-earth — a perfect Zara alternative. Mango offers a wide range of clothing, from denim to dresses and statement outerwear.
Shein accounted for nearly one-fifth of the global fast-fashion market , opens new tab in 2022, outpacing Zara and H&M. Shein's low prices - $5 t-shirts and $10 sweaters - also draw shoppers who might have otherwise shopped at clothing discount stores.
Where does Zara manufacture most of their clothes?
Just over half of its clothes are made in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey. There's a factory doing small production runs on site at HQ, with another seven nearby, which it also owns. As a result, it can turn around products in a matter of weeks.
Inditex is one of the biggest fast fashion group in the world. Zara receives a poor Good Shopping Guide score in our Ethical Fashion Retailers Ratings Table. Although Zara has not yet met our Ethical Benchmark, we hope to see the brand make progress in the future.
The name is an abbreviation of 'trafaluc', which after extensive research we can safely say is a made-up word. It's marketing speak and nothing more. As Zara is a Spanish brand we spent a good portion of our day looking through dictionaries and on Google Translate but we've come up empty.
Massimo Dutti, S.A. (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmasimo ˈðuti]) is a Spanish premium clothing retailer specializing in cashmere and wool products, established in 1985 and owned by Spanish multinational company Inditex, the parent company of Zara, Pull&Bear, and other brands.
We don't own any farms or factories or make the products that are sold in our stores; we source our Clothing and Home products from factories in our key sourcing countries including: Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Türkiye and Vietnam.
While some competitors outsource all production to Asia, Zara manufactures its most fashionable items – half of all its merchandise – at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain (particularly in Galicia), Portugal (northern part) and Turkey.
Zara manages unsold clothing 1 through discount sales, outlet stores, recycling programs, and donations. The brand avoids waste by repurposing fabrics, selling leftovers at lower prices, and working with charities to distribute excess stock.
Even before the impending price hikes, consumer enthusiasm had begun to cool. The percentage of consumers shopping on Shein weekly dropped 8% between April 2024 and February 2025, while monthly shoppers decreased 11%, per Omnisend data. Weekly Temu shoppers fell 19% and monthly shoppers fell 19% during that same time.
H&M generally sells better quality clothes than Shein. H&M prioritizes fabrics and craftsmanship over low-cost mass production, while Shein focuses on affordability and fast trend cycles.
The Chinese-founded firm - which also sells a huge range of beauty and home products - doubled its profits to more than $2bn (£1.6bn) last year, making more than the Swedish fashion group H&M and the UK's Primark and Next. Today, it ships to customers in 150 countries across the world.
La Redoute is the French equivalent to brands like Zara or Mango, and is a go-to for affordable, everyday styles along with items you can dress up for after-dark too.
“Zara is a designer brand now,” said Guido Palau, a stylist who does hair at fashion shows for elite names like Prada and Valentino. “They're really giving their customers a high-end product.” Industry observers credit the company's designer makeover to Marta Ortega Pérez, chairperson of Zara's parent company Inditex.
H&M is known for budget-friendly, casual clothing, while Zara focuses on trend-driven, stylish pieces with a higher price point. If affordability is your priority, H&M is better. If you prefer higher-end fast fashion with trendier designs, Zara is the winner.
Zara is the Spanish clothing retailer Inditex Group's flagship brand. Of the numerous fashion companies that belong to Inditex, Zara has the highest store numbers on a global scale. As of January 2025, Spain, France and Italy were the European countries with the highest number of Zara stores as shown in this statistic.
Stradivarius (Spanish: [estɾaðiˈβaɾjus], Catalan: [əstɾəðiˈβaɾjus]) is a Spanish women's clothing fast fashion retailer from Barcelona owned by the Inditex group.
Massimo Dutti is a Spanish clothes manufacturing company, founded in 1985, which is part of the Inditex group. Massimo Dutti is not a real person, but a trademark. Despite the Italian name, it is a Spanish company employing over 4000 people worldwide.
