Co-founder of fashion retailer Zara, who was Spain's richest woman with an estimated worth of $6.1bn, had stroke in Menorca
The world's richest self-made woman, a Spanish former seamstress who co-founded the fashion retailer Zara, has died at the age of 69.
Rosalia Mera was the richest woman in Spain with an estimated worth of $6.1bn (£3.9bn), although her fortune represented a fraction of the wealth accumulated by her former husband and Zara co-founder, Armancio Ortega.
Mera suffered a stroke while on holiday on the island of Menorca. She died on Thursday night in a hospital in the town where she was born, La Coruna in northern Spain.
Having left school at 11 years old, Mera worked as a seamstress as a teenager before setting up a company with Ortega that would evolve into one of the biggest clothes retailers in the world.
Originally, the pair had planned to name the store Zorba, after the exuberant fictional Greek, but the store sign was modified to avoid confusion with a nearby bar. Today the rearranged name sits above 1,763 Zara stores around the world. The couple, who had two children together, separated in 1986.
The Zara model grew up from the idea that first sent Mera into business: producing speedy and cheap imitations of the latest catwalk or pop culture trends. Mera was one of the great pioneers of so-called "fast fashion", which sees Zara branches rapidly replace its stock with new ranges.
The chief source of Mera's wealth was the single-digit shareholding she retained after retiring in 2004 from the board of the parent company Inditex, which owns a range of fashion brands including Massimo Dutti and Bershka as well as Zara and employs 120,000 people worldwide.
Inditex said: "The group wishes to send its sincere condolences to her loved ones and friends at this extremely difficult time, after the loss of a person who contributed so much to the origins and development of the company."
Despite her vast wealth, Mera stayed close to home and was often seen socialising in Galicia's salsa bars and taverns. She added her voice to opposition to cuts to public services in Spain. She also spoke out against government plans to make it more difficult for young women to get abortions.
According to Forbes magazine, Mera was the world's richest self-made woman, and the 20th richest overall. Ortega took a much bigger stake in Inditex and is now the world's third-richest man with a fortune of $57bn and rising.
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