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Zara opens its largest United States store in Chicago
The Inditex Group’s flagship fashion retailer, Zara, today opened its first store in Chicago, Illinois at 700 N. Michigan Avenue, a prime shopping destination on the city’s Magnificent Mile. The store, with a space measuring more than 16,000 commercial square feet (1,500 square meters) spread over three floors, is Zara’s largest location in the United States.
The new store greets Chicago shoppers with an eye-catching façade measuring 50 feet (15 mts.) high and 197 feet (60 mts.) across at the intersection of N. Michigan Avenue and Huron Street, with window displays onto both streets. The interior features Zara’s latest collections for women, men and children, along with a wide range of accessories. For this location, Zara’s in-house architecture teams added innovations in interior design which offer a preview of the new Zara retail image, as the retailer constantly updates itself to adapt to its customers’ changing tastes.
The new interior is designed to give customers a more comfortable and accessible shopping experience. This is achieved by using smaller interior walls and furnishings which offer suggestions for styling a complete look, while mannequins provide inspiration. The color scheme substitutes the original brown and beige shades and replaces it with grays, whites and blacks, giving the space an elegant and sophisticated look.
The Michigan Avenue opening brings Zara’s number of stores in the Chicago area to two, following the 2008 opening at the Old Orchard Center in Skokie. The retailer plans to open another location on N. State Street (Block 37) before the end of the year. The retailer currently has 47 stores in major U.S. cities.
Zara is flexible and fast in adapting to the market demands. With a creative team of more than 300 professionals, Zara’s design process is based on the demands and desires of the customers. Its model is characterised by continuous product refreshment: new articles reach the stores twice a week. Zara pays special attention to the design of its stores, its shop windows and interior decor, and the location by selecting the best sites in major shopping districts.
Zara is owned by the Inditex Group, one of the largest fashion retailers in the world with over 4,400 stores in 73 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. In addition to Zara, Inditex has seven other brands: Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe.