Marta Ortega: How to survive her father's legacy En Inditex
When Marta Ortega (A Coruña, 37 years old) turned 20, lived in a London where Kate Moss reigned, the woman who at the beginning of the new millennium dictated what the world became.Before starting as a clerk in Bershka, I studied at the European Business School, and although he lived in the exclusive Chelsea neighborhood, where many of the great names of international luxury are based, he still went to the worldly parties for Spaniards, with karaoke and raffleof hams, in Great Portland Street, far removed from the circles of the fashion jet set.It ran 2004 and Harvard converted Amancio Ortega's business model, who had first revealed his identity only four years ago, in a case study: the scheme, based on the frantic opening of stores in all the large avenues of the world togetherWith a pioneer and very sophisticated data system created in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to respond to customer requests in record time, he attached the interest of the international economic press.
That Inditex, still the mecca of the basics with a touch of design created by his father, was very different from the one who is now going to preside over in April.To start, then the group had not yet entered the digital trade, which was not incorporated until 2010."They waited until they considered that they had developed the necessary capabilities to offer a purchase experience at the height of what he offered in their physical stores," explains Coro Saldaña, digital management consultant in distribution and fashion companies.In turn, Zara's physical stores were not yet the spectacular design premises: “Now they are tendones where the product, scarce and very tidy, is placed as in a luxury store.But in addition, they are technological nodes where you collect or return your online purchase with a QR ”, specifies Paloma Díaz Soloaga, professor of the Complutense in the intangible and fashion management area.
The product strategy has also changed radically.“If we traveled in the mid -2000s, Zara was full of aftershocks, sometimes without any complex, which cost about 50 euros.The so -called Balenazara jacket, a fairly accurate replica of one of Nicolás Ghesquière's designs for Balenciaga in autumn spring 2007, is the best sample of the strategy at that time, ”says Carmen Chacero, who began to carefully analyze the garments of the flagship flagshipInditex 15 years ago in a blog that is now an Instagram account with 150.000 followers named Devil Wears Zara (the devil wears Zara).She was one of the first to perceive that in 2015, by work and grace of Amancio Ortega, the streets around the world were filled with an army of women dressed in a yellow biker jacket chick."The brand, which was inspired by the catwalks, begins to be copied by other low cost brands, which makes the garments look down even more, an effect that has multiplied by the hand of brands such as Aliexpress".The appearance of viral garments meant the perfect integration between physical stores and the digital world."Zara's is the best example I know of a totally synchronized experience between the two worlds," says Coro Saldaña.
Opacity, the absence of advertising and allergy to their own names in the teams have been such ferrous principles within the Inditex universe created by Amancio Ortega that when in 2017 Zara presented on his website the photographer Steven Meisel as a claim to sell hisNew collection, the industry knew that something was changing.In turn, Madonna's fetish photographer and Vogue Italy left the glamor of the covers of high -end magazines to be released in the digital sale of a textile giant.Zara was no longer the store to go to buy basic trend;It had become a kind of hybrid between the intangible aspirational of the catwalk and the product accessible at street level that also used advertising strategies identical to those of any brand.
“With the model that Zara raised 20 years ago, based on the physical store and the speed of rotation, the company would have dissected, would have died successful.Before it was your policy to maintain the absolute prominence of the product: to have the best photographers and models but not to mention them;Now they incorporate big names from the fashion world to campaigns and releases and transmit a higher idea, ”says Díaz Soloaga, who explains that all these changes are in part of Marta Ortega, who has been working for 15 years and making decisions in the shadow.She herself, like so many girls from her generation, is an "inditex creature" with a formation in fashion product of the family legacy, but also of the sign of the times.“Not only has it grown in contact with designers or employers.Also, as soon as he could surround himself with creative and first level artists, ”says Saldaña.
The transformation of your social profile also has a lot to do with its evolution.If at his first wedding with the Asturian rider Sergio Álvarez Moya was still a fond of horses who barely left his usual circle of Coruña friends and the equestrian, in the second, with the model agent Carlos Torretta, in 2018, he couldSeeing a woman who had entered the glamorous world of her husband (who during her New York years maintained a courtship with the socialité Victoria Traina) and to be part of the first division of international fashion.As such, he invited his link to the designer of his wedding dress, Pier Paolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, and Fabien Baron, the legendary art director who improved the image of Bottega Veneta or Dior before creating the last logo of Zara.
Conoce en profundidad todas las caras de la moneda.SuscríbeteThis week, with the appointment of Marta Ortega still recent, Zara announced the launch of a collection of garments specially conceived for metoverso, developed with the small Korean cult firm Ader error, and another of sophisticated stamped coats, with campaign of the prestigious PaoloRoversi and prices ranging from 300 to 500 euros.All just when a great retrospective exhibition of the late photographer Peter Lindbergh, the man who immortalized the legendary supermodels of the 1990s (Claudia, Cindy, Naomi), but also the one who took the photos of theSecond wedding of Ortega, who has become a celebrity photograph by fashion and heart magazines whose looks (always mixing their own brands as of great luxury signatures) are already as influential as theof the same Kate Moss.
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Marta Ortega, unlike his father, a man made to himself who in his 2004 conversation with Covadonga O'Shea, the only in -depth interview he has granted, lamented his lack of academic training, has studied in the most prestigious centersFrom the world, speak three languages and, in the words of Paloma Díaz Soloaga, “it belongs to the 21st century, speaks a digital language, knows that the conversation is in networks and that if you do not create specific content and do not surround yourself with big names you do not enter intoThat conversation ".However, relieve the founder at a time of challenges very different from those that his father had to face.
On the one hand, there is the complex management of the public profile of the new president of the company, very beneficial to promote fashion values but completely unusual in family businesses: “In this type of companies, discretion and austerity, thecommitment to effort and dedication are key values and that is not very compatible with leading a public life that attracts attention.The natural scope of the information they generate must be the pages of economy and business, ”explains Daniel Lorenzo, professor at the Family Business Chair of the University of Coruña (UDC) and an advisor to the Family Business Institute.Maybe that's why Marta Ortega, who occupied the cover of the magazine Hola!With the two weddings of her, the Wall Street Journal has chosen to grant an interview for the first time.
On the other hand, Inditex has to deal with its own ghosts: with its vertiginous production rhythms, it forced the entire industry to accelerate their cycles and educated several generations of women in the idea that buying the latest fashion at an accessible priceIt was almost a right.“At the moment their problem is not to maintain the benefit, because they have already shown that they know how to do it: they have even returned to the sales level they had before the pandemic.The challenge is the waste they generate.Because your business model is based on constantly producing, ”argues Dana Thomas, journalist and author of Fashionopolis: the price of fast fashion and the future of clothing.
According to the 2019 company's annual report, Inditex put on sale 1.600 million articles and that production rate increases 15% every year since 2015.In recent years, the company has made efforts to be more sustainable.It has pledged that all the energy used in 2022 from clean sources and to reach the zero net emissions throughout its value chain in 2040;In parallel, they have returned to work with MIT to investigate organic fabrics and develop innovations in recycling."For two years, part of the variable salary of the management positions is valued based on how much they have advanced in sustainability," says Díaz Soloaga, "but they do not presume too much of it, perhaps for fear of being accused of Greenwashing" [Environmental face washing].
Transparency with the workforce is perhaps the greatest obstacle that Marta Ortega must overcome.During the months of confinement, in 2020, other Competeting Competera companies suffered a strong reputation crisis, as workers subcontracted in developing countries were mobilized with initiatives such as I Made Your Clothes to announce that textile giants had canceledHis orders without dealing with payments, although Inditex was cited among the few exceptions to said practice.These types of scandals do not go unnoticed to clients educated in the new fashion culture, which are informed, have changed values and demand to know who and under what working conditions make their garments, which is not simple taking into account the enormoussupply network that a giant needs as Inditex.
The company promotes that its garments are prepared with sustainable raw materials and has a demanding code of conduct for the protection of human rights and the promotion of international labor regulations, with prohibitions of forced labor, child labor, discrimination, abuseand other guarantees.But it is a risk that is very present in the sector.In the words of Dana Thomas: "The planet and its inhabitants are interconnected.You can have all the organic cotton you want, but if forced workers collect it, you still have a problem ”.
