SPAIN'S most international clothing firm has started showcasing village scenes on its T-shirts – lending a new slant to the term 'high-street fashion'.
As yet, it is not clear whether Zara plans to expand to cover more towns, or the existing ones on the Inditex empire's star brand are the end of the story; neither is it immediately obvious where the pictures on the white short-sleeved tops actually are.
It was the mayor of Vejer de la Frontera (Cádiz province), Francisco Manuel Flor Lara, who noticed his own town on a T-shirt sold by the low-cost womenswear store, answering shoppers' question about one of those featured, at least.
He took to social media to express his delight.
“Zara is selling a T-shirt around the world with a photo of Vejer. Yes, just like that: One of the main fashion stores nationally and globally, Zara, has put a top on sale with a photo of Vejer on it,” Flor Lara wrote on Facebook.
He was even able to clarify for its wearers which street was emblazoned across them.
“It's the beautiful C/ Trafalgar, with its trademark white house and terracotta roof tiles, and the Bar Trafalgar.
“Perhaps you don't realise just how much this means, but for Zara to choose Vejer is very significant indeed,” the mayor concluded.
The picture of the narrow, cobbled lane rising up a hill will do more for Vejer de la Frontera – and probably the province of Cádiz – than the national government's multi-billion 'recovery plan' in terms of repairing economic damage caused by the pandemic: Although Vejer is popular with tourists and local visitors, being one of southern Spain's traditional picture-postcard white villages, the outbreak of Covid-19 and movement restrictions over the past year and a half means those who rely on day-trippers and holidaymakers for their income are finding it hard to make ends meet.
But now a quaint image of it appears on T-shirts sold on almost every continent, the free advertising Vejer has been handed on a plate could be a major turning point.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com