Famed as one of the world’s most accessible existing fashion brands, Zara is a staple feature of must-visit shopping streets across the world and is fuelled by a success that’s seen it expand from small roots in Spain back in 1975 to become one of the most notable fashion names imaginable. This brand, which we have to thank for the very creation of fast fashion, has especially made its name through a focus on providing passions for fashion across cultures, age groups, and tastes. And, if the experts are to be believed, Zara largely has a focus on customer co-creation to thank for its often astounding success. 

Before we get into the details of why putting customers at the forefront of fashion has proven so transformative, let’s first consider just a few stats proving how much of a powerhouse Zara has become for fashion worldwide, including – 

• Stores across 96 markets
• 3,000+ stores worldwide
• $14.7 billion brand value
• Purchases from 4% of UK adults in 2021
• 1.8 million monthly searches
• And more

In short; Zara is the most iconic and well-represented high-street fashion retailer of the moment, which employs as many as 174,000 members of staff worldwide, and welcomes upwards of four million female shoppers in the US alone each season. However, the real question, and the consideration we’ll address here, is not how successful Zara is right now, but how customer co-creation has paved the way for one of the most notable rises to fashion fame that we’ve seen in generations. 

Customer-centric collaborations

Collaborations in the fashion world aren’t exactly unique at the moment, with just a few notable collabs of 2021 alone including Gucci’s pairing with Balenciaga and of course, Versace’s work with Fendi. Collaboration is also nothing new to Zara, which has long worked with brands including Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, and Oysho. However, Zara has gained the edge of collaborations for perhaps the longest sustained period thanks to a focus on making these partnerships work while always keeping consumer needs in mind. That’s not to say, of course, that Versace didn’t think about what people wanted when partnering with Fendi, but these one-time focuses are ultimately blown out of the water through the ongoing collaborative focuses that have made Zara what it is, always developed in keeping with what the information this high-street brand has access to when it comes to what consumers want, and the best ways to deliver it at speed. 

Exclusivity through scarcity

Scarcity isn’t something that we can normally expect from high-street fashion that’s designed en masse and is perhaps the prime reason why many of us prefer to pay more for designer pieces than heading to our local fashion retailers. However, Zara has uniquely managed to overcome this setback even within a traditional high street setting by limiting the quantities of every style. From a business perspective, of course, these limitations and the cost savings possible as a result have clear benefits (especially considering Zara’s speed of turnover), but even more notably, the scarcity that this creates taps into the desires of fashion-conscious consumers who forever seek to stand apart. As a result, as many as 85% of Zara clothes sell at full price, compared with just 65% across the rest of the industry. 

Expansive style selections

Most often, designers and fashion retailers cater for unique but limited demographics that have proven lucrative for them in the past. That’s a business basic, but it’s one that Zara has gutsily thrown out of the window by providing expansive styles (as many as 12,000 annually, in fact!) across the wide-ranging customer-first collaborations that we’ve already discussed. Casual clothing from brands like Pull & Bear displayed directly alongside the high-end offerings of Massimo Dutti especially enable a far wider-reaching consumer appeal, thus providing Zara with arguably a far-ranging customer base and profitability that’s enviable to even the highest-end fashion designers.

Customers as key designers

Zara’s co-creation strategy particularly comes into its own considering that this high-street retailer also prioritises its customers as key designers. This is especially made possible through the use of in-store radio frequency identification technology (RFID) which tracks the locations of garments to ensure awareness of the most popular items, and the consumer habits worth taking note of. This focus on relevant customer insights at any given time pairs especially well with Zara’s focus on the quick turnover of goods, which in just one example that allowed them to deliver pink scarves to 2,000 stores after consumers requested these items in locations including Tokyo, San Francisco, and Frankfurt. As well as again reducing costs by limiting the need to produce unwanted stock, this focus allows Zara to always prioritise items that are guaranteed to sell well, producing a responsive retail design that eliminates the guesswork that’s used elsewhere across the fashion industry. 

Competitive customer research

As customer service expectations expand way beyond clothing refunds offered at the till, every single fashion retailer is putting plans in place to expand the efficiency of its service. This goal is largely achieved through addressing admittedly crucial questions, like how to maintain speedy social media replies, and what is the best live chat for website? However, Zara once again piques customer-centric fashion focuses to the post by empowering its employees through some of the most competitive customer research on the market. Employees and management teams across the company are specially trained to listen out for customer comments and ideas, while keenly observing the styles customers wear in-store, and whether those would work for Zara.

This step away from more traditional research focuses like sales figures queue times (though Zara inevitably tracks those things too), makes for a far more human approach to product development, always tailored towards consumers in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be possible if people were simply treated as numbers on a computer screen. As well as making every employee feel far more valued within their roles, these research methods have particularly helped with Zara’s global expansion thanks to efforts such as smaller sizes offered in Japanese stores, special culturally-sensitive women’s clothes offered in stores across Arabic countries, and much more. Systems that are designed to very quickly spread these insights back to Zara’s Spanish headquarters are particularly effective for the development of designs that match consumer needs in the moment, always at a moment’s notice. 

Ethical commitments that everyone can get behind

As the brand that heralded the fast fashions that see as many as 10,000 clothes items ending up in landfills every five minutes, Zara’s generally negative environmental reputation has perhaps been its largest hurdle when keeping customer needs at the forefront. That said, our favourite fashion retailer has more recently been doing a great deal to turn opinions around in its favour regarding even this. In particular, Zara stores are now 100% eco-efficient, while the brand has vowed to become zero waste by 2023. Zara has also made a more general ethical commitment to people which focuses on everything from professional development to diversity and beyond. Continuous improvement programs for employees, and an increased focus on community projects like the ‘Forandfrom’ program, are especially helping to highlight Zara as an employer worth working for, and a company worth bringing into any community. And, with people always on-side wherever they set up shop, Zara can’t go wrong with continuing to expand across perhaps more locations than any other fashion retailer in the world. 

Zara’s success just keeps on growing

Even at a time when consumers are forever expecting more from brands in general, Zara, and its parent-company Inditex continue to hold onto a competitive edge thanks to these efforts and many more. A focus on adaptable and responsive designs particularly enables a forward-thinking edge that’s already seen sales exceeding pre-pandemic figures despite the so-called ‘death of the highstreet’. 

Admittedly, Zara has faced some challenges as sales shift online, with this customer-centric focus on reactive design particularly resulting in the retailer joining the online environment as much as a decade behind its closest competitors like H&M. However, even as eCommerce continues to take fashion stores by storm, Inditex predicts that a hybrid model will be far more effective for continuing to ensure results that keep everyone happy. 

So far, that theory certainly seems to be holding its own and is particularly effective as Zara continues to consider a more sustainable approach to fast fashion that could bring even sceptics onboard. This sustainability focus, already seen from luxury designers like Vivienne Westwood, will inevitably have a major impact and will include the ongoing use of things like in-store clothes recycling bins that importantly make sustainability accessible to the mainstream. 

As more and more struggling retailers, in particular, continue to learn from and follow in the footsteps of the so-called ‘Zara approach’, this favourite fashion store will find itself growing from strength to strength, and perhaps even providing foundational service offerings that prove as transformative as fast fashion itself. In either instance, high-street fashion doesn’t get more fascinating than the example of co-creation that Zara is already setting. 

Humans have always been excellent storytellers, from cave paintings depicting how they captured their dinner to modern fables that parents read to their children every day. Another way of telling these stories is by acting them out on a stage while singing the lines instead of telling them.

The opera is a beautiful way of transporting the audience to another time and place while making them feel part of the storyline. Characters come alive on stage, and the singers’ clear melodies land softly on the ear. Raw emotions travel from the singers to the audience, and great scenes are often the backdrop of the classical notes.

A symphonic orchestra accompanies the story to bring the music to life spectacularly. All these grand gestures tell one story, and many still ask; is the opera still relevant in 2022?

An Opera Is An Important Form Of Art

We can describe art as an action that a person performs to create something new or beautiful. Different art forms come together in an opera. The display of a masterpiece takes the audience away from their troubles for a while. 

Many people don’t realize that the singers practice their part, the set design happens months in advance, and the orchestra goes through each piece of music for hours each day. The theatre prepares the venue and employs hundreds of employees to help make the performance a comfortable experience for everyone.

Some opera singers have dedicated most of their lives to their performances and helped shape the opera that many still enjoy today. One of those singers, Lily Pons, was dubbed the prima donna assoluta for her contributions in the 1900s. To deliver songs with such perfect pitch that it inspires others takes many years of perfecting.

Many opera singers followed in her footsteps, and the mere mention of their names would make anyone agree that an opera is an exquisite form of art. Their unique interpretations of old classics have carried this art forward and will continue for years to come.

It Is Part Of Human Culture

Like other forms of art, opera pieces depict and reflect parts of ourselves. We resonate with the characters and identify their emotions in our own lives. Opera is not just a story that actors portray; it is a part of human culture.

Modern movies have genres like Sci-Fi that don’t show scenes that would happen during a day on earth, while opera storylines would follow events like love stories that people can see themselves in. Opera is a genre where almost anyone can see a part of reality. It drew crowds from all over to witness the performances and still does today, with some theatre productions available to enjoy from the comfort of our homes.

People attend opera performances to remind them of that part of their culture that they may not have been practicing for some time. It is a part of history that everyone should be familiar with, young or old. We must never forget a cultural gem as we have in opera.

Opera Music Stimulates The Senses

There is little in the world that compares to the absolute power of music. It awakens feelings from the inside that manifest on the outside. Music that we feel deep in our souls could give us goosebumps on our skin because it is so touching. Without physically touching us, it touches the heart and mind.

Opera singers have a specific way of singing that makes their voice carry over the entire theater without using microphones or other equipment. How brilliant is that when it gives us all those feelings without being amplified? Music like opera has a calming effect on the nervous system and may even stimulate the area of the brain that deals with excitement and pleasure. No wonder so many people flock to these productions.

During one performance, the audience visually sees the performers. They hear the beautiful melodies from the voices and orchestra. The live rendition makes them want to reach out and be part of the experience.

The Last Aria

Opera is a unique art form combining singing, acting, language skills, and voice manipulation in ways no other singer can. The performances bring people from all walks of life together. Even when you don’t understand the language, the singer tells the story beautifully. The fact that you feel it means you already know what each character is conveying.

The great sounds that fill the air seem tangible, and the opera singers, along with the orchestra, whisk the audience away instantly. Music with such flowing tones stimulates the senses and demands the appreciation that the audience will surely give. Opera can’t be mistaken for anything else-they are masterpieces.