Zara at 50: Spain's fashion line's plans to grow and bring in premium stores

In Arteixo, northern Spain, workers are putting the final touches to a gigantic white box of a building, fixing windows and planting greenery in the new global headquarters of the fashion brand Zara, which turned 50 this year.

- Sarah Butler

The site, complete with a private high street where the retailer will test out its latest store concepts, is not far from the small store on the corner of a nondescript street in the centre of nearby La Coruña where, in 1975, Amancio Ortega opened his first fashion store.

From those humble beginnings grew Inditex, a fashion empire that today boasts seven brands including Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Oysho. It has more than 5,500 stores in 98 countries and an online presence in 116 more - from the US and UK to Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan.

Zara, which has been worn by the Princess of Wales, Taylor Swift and, controversially, Melania Trump (the "I don't care" jacket), was the first brand in the group and remains by far the biggest. It is budget-friendly but not super cheap, drawing in shoppers with affordable tailoring and on-trend items, such as a £40 polka dot frock that won viral popularity in 2019.

Ortega, who at 89 is still regularly seen at the head office chatting with staff, was a local clothing manufacturer who had worked his way up from being a delivery boy at a shirtmakers when he opened his first shop. He is now the 12th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of about $120bn (£90bn).

More than 160,000 people work for the company he founded, over 5,000 of them at the Inditex headquarters in Arteixo, which includes the soon to be opened Zara head office. Together they helped ring up sales of €38.6bn last year and profits of €7.6bn.

When the Guardian was given rare access to the building's gleaming white corridors, staff whizzed past on electric scooters to get around the vast site.