PortraitOn April 1, the 38-year-old heiress will take over as head of the Inditex group, founded by her father, Amancio Ortega, becoming the most powerful woman in fashion. Sharp lines, high-flying collaborations and luxury codes: it is she who has been driving the upmarket move of the Spanish ready-to-wear brand for years. An evolution that comes at a time when fast-fashion is facing a challenge due to its human and environmental impacts.
It was a rare event for La Coruña. The second city of Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, owes its reputation more to its Roman lighthouse and its culinary specialty, octopus, than to its cultural life. The one whose mist makes the hair of the women foam, the one which blinds passers-by when the sun reverberates on the immaculate facades of the buildings of the port, whose winds sweep the coast and raise the heavy waters of the Atlantic, has remained simple, authentic and unknown to foreigners.
However, at the beginning of December 2021, personalities traveled from Paris, New York or London – some sent by private plane – for the opening of an exhibition which could have been perfectly held in one of these three fashion capitals. . Models Naomi Campbell, Esther Canadas or Marie-Sophie Wilson-Carr, actress Rossy de Palma, photographers David Sims and Mikael Jansson, stylists Emmanuelle Alt (ex-editor-in-chief of vogue Paris) and Karl Templer (former artistic director of the magazine Interview), creators Pierpaolo Piccioli (artistic director of Valentino) and Clare Waight Keller (formerly at Chloé), the director of Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino, hairdresser and make-up artist Odile Gilbert and Stéphane Marais…
A concentrate of international class came to see the posthumous exhibition of “friend” Peter Lindbergh, a huge fashion photographer who died in 2019. But that day, the real star was none other than the hostess who had made this event possible. event and “put La Coruña back on the map”, as she used to say: Marta Ortega Pérez. By the will of her father, Amancio Ortega, founder of Zara, this 38-year-old young woman will take on the 1er next April, as president, the head of the Inditex group, the world leader in fast-fashion, whose headquarters are in Arteixo, about fifteen kilometers from La Coruña.
For ten years, although he continues to come several days a week to the office, his father has officially retired from the executive management, leaving Pablo Isla, the general manager, to manage the day-to-day affairs of a company of more than 144 000 employees. Rather well, moreover, because the group should exceed 20 billion euros in turnover in 2021 and its market valuation is estimated at some 75 billion euros. Impressive figures, which today propel Marta Ortega Pérez to the rank of the most powerful woman in the fashion industry.
A sort of extended mega-family
You have 89.3% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
We want to give thanks to the author of this short article for this awesome material
Marta Ortega Pérez, a velvet revolution at the head of Zara