You will never guess why Zara is called Zara
Good knowledge for the pub quiz
Good knowledge for the pub quiz
Zara has been a staple on our highstreets for as long as we can remember, but how many of us actually know about its origins?
In today’s fashion lesson (remember how we learned how to pronounce ASOS and what H&M stands for?): how did Zara get its name?
We have always been so obsessed with the clothes that we’ve never stopped to think what "Zara" actually means, until now. And the answer might actually surprise you.
It turns out that "Zara" was not the high street store's original name, and that the moniker actually came about by accident.
Amancio Ortega, the founder, opened the first store in 1975 in A Coruña Galicia, Spain, and named it "Zorba", after the classic film Zorba the Greek.
However he soon realised that just two blocks away, there was a bar with the exact same name.
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Amancio Ortega already had the letters made for the store sign with the original name, so he simply re-arranged them to form the word "Zara" (In fact, it’s thought the extra "a" came from a spare set of letters).
Well, that we couldn't have predicted.
Now "Zara" doesn’t actually mean anything, but we can all agree it’s very catchy.
Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.
Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).
Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.
However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.
Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.
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