Amancio Ortega Gaona, a native of Galicia, had worked as a clerk at a ladies’ apparel retailer before starting his own housecoat manufacturing business in 1963. He opened the first Zara store in La Coruña in 1975; by 1989, there were 82 Zara stores in Spain, and Ortega began international expansion with Zara stores in Portugal, Paris and New York.