Suzy Hansen at The New York Times went to one of Zara parent Inditex's factories to see how things worked.
She came out with a great anecdote that shows how wholly devoted the company is to speed.
From The NYT (emphasis ours):
At the end of my tour, I went to one of the Inditex factories. There were about 100 workers, I was told; huge machines do much of the work. Hundreds of bright red three-quarter-length coats were hanging throughout the building, almost ready to be shipped. A line of women stood at ironing boards, smoothing out the wool-blend, looking for defects and, the spokeswoman told me with emphasis, attaching security tags. Inditex had discovered that if that task was left to the employees in the stores, it would take an extra few intolerable hours to get that trendy red coat from Galicia into your closet.
It's a race, and Zara's doing every little thing that it can to get those clothes from its line to your hands as fast as possible.
Within 11 days, it can get the latest fashion trends into your closet. That's an incredible pace in the fashion world, and one that no one else can quite replicate — even competitors like H&M and Mango.
NOW SEE: The Most Outrageous Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Ever >