
Welcome to Amanda Zips It Up
Regular readers will know that I’m a staunch Zara fan, AKA my go-to high street fashion haven.
Zara turns 50 this week (as old as me). And whilst we’re on the subject of birthdays, Bicester Village is 30 this week (if you prefer an Outlet to what the high street has to offer).
Fresh off a string of amazing collaborations, Zara is pulling out all the stops to mark its first 50 years in business. They’ve posted an epic black & white video “50 Years, 50 Icons”, by Steven Meisel– 50 years to the day from when Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store in A Coruña, in Galicia, Spain.

By 2011, with the establishment of an outpost in Australia, the company had a bricks-and-mortar presence on five continents. It now has 2,221 physical stores in the world, as well as a brilliant website – and they home-deliver promptly and so beautifully in those wonderful brown boxes.
Under the Zara brand, the company emerged as a fashion retailer with Women’s, Men’s, and Kids’ collections and gradually built and strengthened a philosophy of placing its
customers at the heart of its decision-making, listening attentively to their preferences, and offering them high-end quality fashion at affordable prices.

In “50 Years, 50 Icons”, the models wear pieces from the company’s 128-piece anniversary collection, which feels distinctly elevated in its tailored minimalism. The clothes are mostly in black and white, inspired by the idea of celebratory tuxedo dressing – which is a timely coincidence given the theme of ‘Black Style & Tailoring’ at last week’s Met Gala. There’s also a collectible anniversary T-shirt featuring a portrait of the 50 models.
The Zara anniversary collection is available now
Over in the Cotswolds, when Scott Malkin first arrived in Bicester in 1991 it was a one-horse town. “I came to take a look at a piece of land just off the M40. All I could see when I got there was a forlorn-looking mare wandering around fields that were filled with debris,” he recalls. But Malkin liked what he saw and bought the land for £15 million. And what the boss of Value Retail did next changed UK shopping for ever. He created the world’s first upscale discount-fashion shopping centre: Bicester Village.
“Nobody in Britain thought it would work,” he says with a laugh. Back then outlet malls were cheap and not-so-cheerful jumble sales of “factory shops” with a naff food court. How wrong the critics were. Bicester Village, which is celebrating its 30th birthday this month, now rivals Bond Street for a posh shopping trip, attracting more than seven million visitors a year. “We’ve gone from 13 boutiques and one café to 150 boutiques and five restaurants.”

Its boutiques are the same that you would find in Bond Street — Prada, Gucci, Dior, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Loewe, Celine — but with prices 30-40 per cent lower, sometimes more. Hands-free shopping means you can collect all your bags in one go at a central hub when you have finished caning your credit card.
So happy birthday to both – and let’s crack on with this week’s round up of fashion and lifestyle.