Emperor of fast fashion: Who is Amancio Ortega?

He was born into poverty. He stayed away from journalists for years. Here's what we know about this richest man in Spain:

What kind of childhood did he have?

Amancio Ortega Gaona was born in a small village on March 28, 1936, at the time of the civil war in Spain. He was the youngest of four siblings. His family, which was in dire poverty, was able to situation improved when Amancio's father got a job at the local train station. They lived in a miserable house in worker lodgings. His mother worked in homes as a maid. Amancio left school and started working at the age of 14 when he heard his mother begging shopkeepers in the bazaar because she could not afford even basic food.

Amancio Ortega's first job was as a clerk at a local company called Gala. Here he learned to weave clothes with her hands. Gala, a traditional shirt manufacturer, is still in service in a store on one of the streets of the city of La Coruña, which gives the impression that time has stopped. José Martínez, Gala's heir and inheriting the business from his father, continues to sell traditional shirts, hats and cardigans. According to his testimony, visitors were asking about their youth friend, Amancio, rather than buying something.

Amancio Ortega, who worked hard as a teenager, would bike around town whenever he had free time. During one of these moments when he was riding his bike, he had a brilliant business idea. Ortega realized that anyone who wants to make good money should offer whatever the customer wants.

Brilliant idea that came to his mind at 16

When Amancio Ortega turned 16, he began to reflect on the wishes of potential customers and, more importantly, on what to do to meet that demand. Galicia, an autonomous region of Spain in the 1950s, was the perfect spot to put his business plan to life. Because Galicia was a region where many women who knew how to sew lived and where unemployment was intense. Ortega organized sewing cooperatives by organizing women here. Underwear, baby clothes and nightgowns were produced on the production line. Galician women were eager to get into this job, which offered terrific conditions.

Thanks to his ten years of experience managing these cooperatives, he founded his first company, Confecciones GOA, in 1963. (If you read the GOA backwards, you will see that it consists of the initials of its name.) Amancio Ortega organized the bathrobe manufacturing business as a family business. Amancio's task was to produce new fashion trends. His brother Antonio handled business affairs. His sister Josefa was in charge of accounting. Rosalía Mera Goyenechea was his business partner. Amancio Ortega later married Rosalia Mera in 1966.

Private life: They didn't even know who his wife was

Amancio Ortega, who does not like to be in public, spent millions of dollars to keep his private life private. That's why no one knows when Ortega got his first marriage. Still, it is known that his first wife was Rosalía Mera, who is also known as his first business partner. The married couple was never seen together in public. Even their children Sandra Ortega Mera and Marcos Ortega Mera were not allowed to be photographed by the paparazzi. The only thing they were busy with was the textile companies. Amancio Ortega, together with Rosalía Mera, transformed Confecciones GOA into a conglomerate of several popular brands. Everyone knows the name of this holding now: Inditex. Founded in 1985 and listed on the stock exchange in 2001, the Inditex group owns Spanish brands such as Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho and Bershka.

In 1986 Amancio Ortega and Rosalia Mera divorced. He then married Flora Pérez Marcote in 2001, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1983. Flora was 18 years younger than Amancio. Flora used to be an employee at Ortega's company, now she is a member of the board of directors. Ortega's daughter Marta, in her 30s, with Flora Pérez, appears to be Ortega's heir. Marta is very fond of her father. Just like his father, she started his career by working in the lowest level of the stores and gained experience by getting a professional education. Besides career similarities, Amancio Ortega and Marta ride horses together. Ortega also bought an equestrian center in Galicia.

It is a well-known fact that the total number of photographs in which Amancio Ortega, who always avoids being the center of attention, has appeared throughout his life, does not even reach 200. Many of these photos and information were also published in Zara pr releases.

The biography of the world-famous entrepreneur was published on October 21, 2008 as a book in Spanish as Así es Amancio Ortega, el hombre que creó Zara. In March 2012, the book was released in English as The Man from Zara: The Story of the Genius Behind the Inditex Group.

Zara's unique business model

Amancio Ortega, who established many factories in Spain, opened his first store, Zorba, in the center of La Coruña in 1975. Named after Ortega and his wife's favorite movie, the store was soon changed from Zorba to Zara. Because there was a local bar called Zorba near the store, and he had complained about it. The Zorba bar remained local, but by the 1980s Zara stores had expanded to many cities in Spain. After the Inditex Group was created in 1988, Ortega opened its first Zara store in Portugal. He had discovered that labor in Portugal was even cheaper than in Spain.

In 1989, Zara store was opened in the USA. He entered London in 1998. With Zara's international expansion, Inditex has developed its retail portfolio: Pull&Bear and Massimo Dutti (1991), Stradivarius (1994), Bershka (1998), Oysho (2000), Uterqüe (2008).