You will never guess why Zara is called Zara

Good knowledge for the pub quiz

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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.

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.

The post You will never guess why Zara is called Zara appeared first on Marie Claire.