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Should Made in Italy look up to Inditex?
As luxury dismisses the middle market, Zara raises its game
Fashion
February 28th, 2025
February 28th, 2025
The Made in Italy is in quite bad shape. In just the first part of 2024, over 300 companies have closed in Tuscany, including leather goods manufacturers, tanneries, dyeing factories, and accessory producers – and a similar situation has also shaken Marche and Campania. The lost workforce is a huge burden on the country, which until recently was the creator of all the accessories found in the world's most important luxury boutiques. It would be natural to think that the luxury sector, with its high profits, could help Made in Italy overcome the crisis; yet even the conglomerates LVMH and Kering are not doing so well. On the other hand, Inditex, the Spanish group that owns Zara and other fast fashion brands, is thriving, having launched in the past year alone collaborations and projects with some of the most followed creatives in the industry, as well as clothing capsules with high technical performance (although there is still a long way to go in this field). The financial results of the group demonstrate its foresight: during 2024, LVMH remained at the top in terms of revenue, with a fortune of 20.7 billion euros compared to Inditex's 7.6 billion, but the growth of Amancio Ortega’s titan was unmatched, at 13% compared to 3% for Arnault’s company. In a period of crisis for luxury and craftsmanship, the Zara group has identified an opportunity where no one else had any hope left: aspirational customers. At this point, one might wonder if Inditex is truly the only one capable of saving Made in Italy.
In the past year, luxury has stopped engaging with reality, the only element that safeguards the concept of fashion and innovation. Yes, because at the onset of the sales crisis, brands sought refuge in exclusivity, convinced that customers would appreciate their commitment to protecting noble design, but they ended up alienating the public. Quiet luxury, as fascinating as it is, has flattened the artistic direction of all fashion houses, and the relentless pursuit of trends has further homogenized the stylistic landscape of their offerings: by reducing collections to a mere repetition of the same formula, the desirability of brands has plummeted, and consequently, so has their market dominance. With the shift in focus from design to product quality, from creative innovation to a nostalgic search for past imagery, the relevance of designers has also diminished, triggering what we now know as “the game of musical chairs for creative directors”. The brand magic, that formula that makes a brand current and culturally relevant, is an energy that does not run out; if abandoned, it can be seized by a more attentive company—such as Inditex.
There’s more: the chain reaction triggered by luxury has had repercussions on the entire sector, including the production chain. Despite having sought shelter in the increase in prices and the exclusion of aspirational customers from the market, over the past year, conglomerates have failed to uphold two of the promises that make luxury truly exclusive: inaccessibility and quality. In 2024, the exorbitant prices of fashion and the crisis of Made in Italy have created a major paradox. How can the sky-high price tags of garments be justified if the production chain (especially the Italian one) is struggling, overwhelmed on one side by accusations of worker exploitation and on the other by the closure of hundreds of factories? Isolated in the segment of unjustified luxury, seemingly powerless in the face of the critical situation of Italy’s artisan districts, brands have left themselves exposed, discarding too many trump cards. Meanwhile, Inditex and its peers were ready to pick up the pieces and strike at the right moment. For the Spanish group, the last two years have been the perfect storm: the ultra-fast fashion competitor Shein had become the main target of sustainability criticism instead of Zara, both due to its unmatched production rate and the location of its headquarters (unfortunately, the “Made in China” label does not have a good reputation in the public imagination), while luxury had discarded the middle market and shattered the myth of the creative director. Thus, Inditex began a brand-cleansing process for its flagship label that, rather than a rebranding, corresponds to a repositioning.
Last autumn, Zara launched a packed schedule of collaborations and limited editions, both for clothing and home decor, with some of the key figures in contemporary fashion. At the end of September 2024, the second chapter of Zara x Harry Lambert, celebrity stylist for Harry Styles, was unveiled, followed by a collaboration with designer Stefano Pilati in October, with the Hungarian brand Nanushka in the same month, and with Kate Moss in November. At the beginning of the new year, the brand launched its partnership with British designer Samuel Ross, and in recent days, it has announced upcoming releases created with Aaron Levine and StyleNotCom—not a designer, but an Instagram page that exclusively posts text-based content. The plan of the fast fashion pioneer seems flawless: the launch of a diversified portfolio of collaborations, featuring both globally recognised it-girls (Moss), designers primarily known within the fashion industry (Pilati), and "niche" content creators who have amassed nearly half a million followers (StyleNotCom), has allowed the brand to attract a new wave of interest, new customers, and even the attention of fashion circles that had previously dismissed the brand.
@devlloyd99 Not even cheap either!! - get second hand stuff off vinted instead! #skiing #trend #morzine #italy #skitiktok #zara #zaraski #zaraskiwear #nowat #skiwear #skioutfits #noway #zara Confidence (sped up version) - Ocean Alley
Through limited editions that are not too expensive, slightly higher quality compared to fast fashion competitors (Pilati even expressed surprise at the Spanish brand's production capabilities), as well as a store restructuring that transformed chaotic, cluttered non-places into minimalist shopping oases, Zara has claimed the market space that Shein and luxury had left open. As confirmed by Pilati’s reaction to the brand’s quality, Zara’s repositioning has not only involved elevating its artistic direction but also its quality. Although the brand's production method still adheres to the fast fashion philosophy—a rapid and cost-effective manufacturing process that prioritises quantity (often neglecting its impact on workers and the environment) over quality—the latest initiatives demonstrate Zara’s push towards improving technical materials. Just in the past month, the brand has opened a skiwear pop-up store in Verbier, in the Swiss Alps, and unveiled a line of carbon-plated running shoes. The ski suit has already been tested on the slopes by some TikTok users, who criticised its inadequacy, and it is possible that the sneakers, priced at just 139 euros, may not reach the same level as established competitors like On and Hoka. In any case, the product is there, ready to be showcased on less professional ski slopes and running tracks.
Although the production system adopted by Zara and Inditex still adheres to fast fashion, thus promoting fashion with a colossal environmental impact, it must be acknowledged that the Spanish giant's marketing is impeccable. Now that Inditex has demonstrated its economic and artistic resources to contribute to real culture—the one that protects the concept of fashion and innovation—it is worth asking why luxury and even more so Made in Italy do not want to engage in dialogue with the Spanish company to restart. Creatives and designers are migrating towards fast fashion to keep their careers afloat, and consumers are tired of the hypocrisy of fashion houses that raise prices while lowering quality. So, is a collaboration between luxury and fast fashion, between niche and commercial, still debatable? According to Statista, the fast fashion sector will reach a value of $185 billion by 2027, representing a 74.5% growth in five years. Is it possible that this prospect does not even slightly interest the upper echelons of fashion? When all is said and done, the idea of a collaboration between Zara and Italian craftsmanship does not seem so strange: the former would manage to reduce costs while further elevating its positioning, while Made in Italy would finally be able to safeguard its cultural heritage. Perhaps it is just a utopian perspective, but it is certainly a better alternative to the closure of more factories in the world’s most renowned artisanal districts.
