I have been a huge fan of Zara and have watched them grow over the last 20 years.

The first time I got to experience a Zara store was in the city of Alicante, Spain 1995. What struck me most was their ability to turn the latest catwalk fashion, and I mean overnight, into a well priced garment for the 'high street'. I remember what my Spanish friend Ernesto said, "Tonight you will see the style in an Armani fashion show and by tomorrow it will be merchandised in the Zara store at a quarter of the price." I know for a fact that Zara will turn the SA market on its head, as they have done this in every market they have entered. So like many, I look forward to the media launch party on the 9th, and of course the opening on Thursday. 

Nuggets from Official Zara Press Release.

'Zara will open its first store in South Africa on 10th November. The store will be located in the new extension of Sandton City, Johannesburg. The Sandton City store will have more than 2,600 square meters on one level in which the Woman, Man and Kids collections will be displayed. The launch of Zara in South Africa marks the brands entry into the 80th country in the world.

For the SA consumer, Zara brings with it an innovative shopping experience. Shoppers will have access to fashion on a par with the rest of the world, and not a season behind, as SA will have a collection specifically designed for the Southern hemisphere.

Zara opened its first store in 1975, on a street in the city centre of La Coruña (NW Spain). Zara’s business model is unique, comprising each and every stage of the fashion retail business: design, manufacture, distribution and sale. Zara´s team of designers, made up of more than 350 professionals, continuously assess the customers´ preferences, wishes and demands, offering some 18,000 different models in its stores each year. The availability of the factories owned by the company, together with a wide range of highly experienced external suppliers who have a solid commercial relationship with the concept, allow Zara to manufacture a model and to have it for sale in its stores worldwide within the average term of approximately two weeks. Garments, both those manufactured in-house and those purchased from external suppliers, arrive at Zara’s logistic platforms in Spain, wherefrom they are dispatched to its stores worldwide. Clothes are dispatched twice a week, and this frequency allows a continual renewal of Zara’s fashion offer.'

You might like to view the  Zara lookbook:

Zara Lookbook Summer 2011