The rags to riches tale of Rosalía Mera

Many a venture has been launched on the kitchen table, but few have had the impact of Rosala Mera's venture Zara, says The Daily Telegraph. From lowly beginnings in a "down-at-heel part of Spain" in the dying days of Franco, the fashion start-up is now a global powerhouse. Parent company Inditex is both the world's top clothes retailer by sales, and Spain's largest firm by value.

Mera, who died of a stroke last week, aged 69, left the board in 2004. But her 7% stake in the €55bn giant, run by ex-husband Amancio Ortega, made her "the wealthiest self-made woman on the planet", according to Forbes.

Mera's story is "typical rags to riches", says The Times. Born in a working-class barrio of La Corua in Galicia, she left school at 11 to become an apprentice seamstress. She met Ortega, who'd started out as a messenger for a fashion shop, through the trade. In 1966, they married and began their own business. Initially, they copied designer lingerie and bathrobes: "an early hot-seller was a rose-coloured quilted gown with blue piping". They opened their first shop, which is still trading, in La Corua in 1975.

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They planned, notes The Guardian, to name the business Zorba after the fictional Greek (a great seducer of women). But the sign was modified "to avoid confusion with a nearby bar", and Zara was born. It chimed perfectly with the young, trendier crowd they'd begun to attract.

Zara's speciality was "fast fashion": adapting cat-walk trends for small budgets rapidly (see below). Rosala took care of design, Amancio of logistics. The partnership survived their divorce in 1986, by which time Zara was in most Spanish cities. They made their first international move into Portugal in 1988; the rest is history.

Despite her status as Spain's richest woman, Mera maintained "a highly private life in a country where gossip magazines pursue the rich and famous with a ravenous appetite", says the Financial Times. She had her glamorous side but maintained a down-to-earth quality and was often spotted at her local bar in La Corua. She saw herself as "classless".

Among the foundations she established was a charity that helps the disabled find work: her second child, Marcos, has cerebral palsy. "Capital should be placed at the service of others," she once said. "That's what makes us like ourselves when we look in the mirror."

In her final years, Mera overcame her aversion to publicity to become "an outspoken critic" of the Spanish government's austerity drive warning that the erosion of public health and education services would have "a devastating effect on Spanish society", says The Daily Telegraph. "We are all in the same boat and we should be saving everyone together, not throwing some people out." Spain has lost both an entrepreneurial inspiration, and a force for unity.

A fashion pioneer

Inditex now produces 840 million garments a year for eight retail brands, including Massimo Dutti and Bershka. Yet it still manufactures more than half of these at its own manufacturing base outside La Corua eschewing "the sprawling factories of China".

This close relationship between the factory and shop-floor was instrumental in Zara's early success at setting what would become the benchmark of "fast fashion", says Gwyn Topham in The Guardian: "producing speedy and cheap imitations of the latest catwalk or pop culture trends", with a two-week turnaround from drawing board to clothes rail. Hundreds have since tried to copy the model, but "Mera was one of the great pioneers" and can take credit for changing the face of the high street.

"More closely resembling a highly efficient industrial production line than a conventional fashion retailer", the Inditex model is effective on several levels, said Miles Johnson in the FT. It woos customers with up-to-date fashions, while avoiding "overproducing unpopular stock which then needs to be discounted". Designers know that if a line bombs, they can get on with something new.

Topshop owner Sir Philip Green has described Zara as the "retailer he would most like to buy", says Dennys. Dream on. The chain has constantly trounced critics who predicted its lightning growth (last year, it was opening one new store a day) would end in tears: Zara continues to produce "consistently strong returns to Inditex's bottom line". Fashion, of course, is a fickle beast, and that might change. But for the moment Mera's legacy remains intact. Zara remains the "byword for affordable, contemporary fashion", from Venezuela to Azerbaijan.