Couldn’t face dressing as a wannabe Kate, from the model’s new Top-shop collection? Left cold by Lily’s frilly prom numbers at New Look? Worried that just because H&M loves Kylie, the bikinis designed for the Swedish retailer by the diminutive pop princess may not love you quite as much?

Amid the celebrity designer-fuelled high-street hysteria, Zara stands alone. This is a brand that abhors celebrity tie-ins, eschews all advertising, and prefers to let its mannequins lure customers into its stores – of which it has more than 1,000 in 64 countries. And the customers can’t get enough. Visit any high street on a Saturday afternoon – whether in Oslo or Osaka, Brasilia or Beijing – and it’s hard to avoid shoppers swinging the store’s understated navy-blue bags.

The flagship of the Inditex empire, Zara is controlled by the world’s eighth-richest man, the Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega. A colossus of the retail world, Inditex, has annual sales of €8.3bn (£5.6bn), and net profits of a hefty €1bn, and Zara is the star of its show. Comprising 3,100 stores across four continents and another six retail brands (seven including Zara Home, its nascent home-furnishings chain), the stores’ sales already outrank H&M in Europe.

In the nine short years since Zara first opened its doors in the UK, the chain has blossomed into 50 stores. It’s a fairly meagre number considering that H&M boasts nearly three times that – and Topshop is four times the size – but what it lacks in quantity, Zara makes up for in quality. Few other high-street names can boast a Bond Street address – even if the store does actually front on to Oxford Street.

Since Zara began life in 1975, from Ortega’s sister-in-law’s kitchen table, the retailer has become a national institution in Spain – much like Marks & Sparks is to us, or Benetton is to the Italians. Which goes some way to explaining the media frenzy that has greeted recent speculation in a Galician magazine that, now aged 71, Ortega is grooming his 23-year-old daughter Marta as his eventual successor. One recent report suggested that the youngest of his three children (from his second marriage) is poised to be appointed to the Inditex board, despite the fact that the showjumping-obsessed economics student has yet to finish her studies.

In truth, Marta Ortega Perez is vice-president of the family’s holding companies Gartler and Partler, which, despite the 2001 flotation of Inditex, still control the majority of its shares. But her role there is largely nominal. Yesterday, one company insider said that there are “no short-term plans, or even a medium-term one” for the youngest heir to the Ortega billions to turn her hand to family business in an official capacity. But, given that the intensely private Ortegas adhere to their company’s strict anti-advertising creed by refusing to give interviews, ever, that speculation is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

In the UK, the biggest questions about Zara are to be found within the walls of its 50 stores. They come from its regular customers, who are encouraged to give their feedback on what’s in stock. Typically, shoppers might like the style of a particular dress but not the colour, or the print of a certain jacket but not the cut, explains Mike Shearwood, Zara’s UK managing director. Those comments are passed back to Inditex headquarters in Arteixo, a village near the northern Spanish city of La Coruña. There, the designs will be modified by Zara’s 250-strong creative team, so that shops ends up stocking lines that their customers want, not what the company thinks they want.

This works because, unlike most retailers, Zara does not design the bulk of its ranges months in advance, just pumping out what it has decreed will be that season’s look. The retailer sources the vast bulk of its collections – and all of its most fashionable lines – from factories that it owns, so it can get a design from the drawing-board to the shop floor within a fortnight. That contrasts with other retailers, who believe that achieving the same result in six weeks amounts to a snappy turnaround.

Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Planet Retail who follows Inditex, says: “The design team is up there with Topshop in terms of rapid reaction to catwalk trends. And it’s all down to the local manufacturing base.”

Last year, almost two-thirds of Inditex’s production took place in Europe and neighbouring countries, and just a third happened in Asia. Those proportions would be inverted at almost all of its rivals.

Shearwood likens what happens once a store’s initial delivery starts selling out, to a stock exchange “trading floor”, as managers vie with each other to get their hands on each new line being churned out of the com-pany’s base in Spain. Via handheld PDAs, store managers act as the group’s buyers, placing bids for their outlets. He explains: “Commercial managers fight to get their hands on product for their stores. Allocation is based on sell-through rates. Stores with high rates will get their orders fulfilled.” The beauty of the model is that, when it works, it stops stores from being overstocked with all the same stuff.

“It effectively means that you are producing to a demand, which deliberately doesn’t get fully fulfilled for the best sellers – ensuring a certain exclusivity. It’s not quite Bond Street one-offs, but it might as well be in a lot of cases because many pieces are made in limited volumes,” Shearwood adds. That all slashes the risk of having mountains matching of unsold printed shifts, say, left over at the end of each season that need to be discounted, thereby crucifying the group’s profit margin. The notion of exclusivity works, too. Not least because it means that loyal fans know that shopping in different Zara outlets around the country (and the world) will pay off in the hunt for something that little bit different.

Gillian Suss, 28, a lawyer from London who rates Zara as “one of the coolest shops on the high street”, says: “My boyfriend has begrudgingly come to the understanding that, ‘Yes, we do have to go into every Zara in every city we visit in Europe!’. My favourite stores are the ones in Milan and Rome, for their vastness and stylish ranges.

“The ranges differ depending on what country or town you are in. For instance, in Italy and Spain you see a lot more matching jackets and trousers as [the Italians and Spanish] dress more classically. You see less of that in the UK stores.” Richard Hyman, who heads the Verdict retail consultancy, believes that the reason that Zara hit the ground running in the UK was because its arrival coincided with the outbreak of the shopping mania that has gripped the country for the past decade. “Its big advantage was coming to the UK market at a time when newness was becoming more of an issue. Zara gives a great interpretation of fashion and a tremendously dynamic offering, so if it hits the spot for you, you’re likely to go in quite frequently to check what it’s got in.”

In the words of Ortega, writing in the company’s 1999 annual report, Zara exists to “democratise fashion”. He added: “We offer accessible fashion that reaches the high street, inspired by the taste, desires and lifestyle of modern men and women.” That broad sweep of appeal, which comes in semi-decent fabrics for the price charged, is crucial to Zara’s success in the UK and beyond. Vanessa Gillingham, fashion director at the women’s monthly magazine Glamour, stresses: “What’s so clever is its very broad appeal. Zara doesn’t ostracise older women. Similarly, you can go in there at lunchtime and pick up something to wear out on the town that night, or a suit for work. Zara is very on-trend and very high quality – it’s one of the best on the high street for quality. Their cuts are very good, too.”

Shearwood’s claim that the chain attracts both ends of the age spectrum actually appears to be true. As she was pipped to the French Presidency by Nicolas Sarkozy, guess whose advice led Ségolène Royale to supplement her Agnès B habit with staples from Zara, despite her superior wardrobe. Her 14-year-old daughter’s, of course. And my mother, for one, used a recent work trip to Barcelona to pop into the chain to pick up a white fine-knit sweater and a matching mock-croc wide belt.

The downside of our insatiable hunger for looks that change almost daily has been the whiff of labour-abuse scandals that have hung over the retail industry of late. Even Zara, with its armies of garment stitchers in its Galician heartland, has had its share of scare stories.

The latest, last summer, claimed that Inditex had used Portuguese suppliers who had employed child labour. Inditex jumped on the claims, which boiled down to two children in one family helping their father stitch a few shoes after school, and stepped up its commitment to the Ethical Trading Initiative, an alliance of companies who promote ethical consumerism.

As for whether we will ever see Zara follow the likes of H&M and New Look and sign up a celebrity to give its brand a boost – as its rival Mango has done with Penelope Cruz and Milla Jovovich – industry watchers believe it to be unlikely. “They don’t need to slap a celebrity on their brand. It’s quite refreshing, actually,” says Gillingham.

Zara knows all too well how fellow-retailers have suffered from linking their brand too closely with one look or style – think Gap’s khaki basics, French Connection’s anything-that-moves approach to its FCUK tagline, or Uniqlo’s early fleeces. At Zara, a more aloof path is preferred. Shearwood says: “We try not to link the Zara brand with anything except fashion, whether that be prom dresses or silk prints. That way, when fashions move, we move.” For all Zara’s merits, the chain does have some foibles.

Verdict’s Hyman worries that its fancy store locations risk loading it with an unsustainable rental bill, while other analysts quibble over its approach to pricing. The same puff-sleeved jacket will cost shoppers more in the UK than elsewhere on the Continent, and a bigger premium still if they buy it in the US, the pound’s current strength against the dollar notwithstanding.

The chain’s sizing, too, has come under attack. Too stingy, say some former Zara fans, fed up with trying to squeeze themselves into what they believe their true size to be. Either way, despite its lack of promotions, sponsored supplements or back-of-the-bus ad campaigns, this is one retailer of which you can expect to see a lot more in the future. Inditex plans to open another 500 or so outlets by the end of next January across all of its eight formats, including 140 under the Zara brand.

Most of those will be in Europe, where it remains a relative minnow in most markets outside Spain, despite its high-profile positions on streets from the rue de Rivoli in Paris to Milan’s Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The group also has big plans for its Zara Home chain, starting with its first-ever attempt to colonise the world of online shopping.

So, next time the papers are awash with news of the latest celebrity seeking a quick profile boost by lending their name to a few designs, don’t despair. Just think of Zara.