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Zara-labelled products are on sale in Russia despite the insistence of the brand’s Spanish owner Inditex that it has left the country and has no immediate plans to return.
Apparel from Inditex brands, which also include Bershka, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius, is being imported into Russia to be sold at local chain Tvoe, according to the Moscow-headquartered retailer’s statements.
Nine Tvoe stores, rebranded as “Tvoe n Ko”, began selling the products in September, according to the Russian company’s social media posts, two months after Inditex chief executive Óscar García Maceiras told the Financial Times that conditions were “certainly not” in place for it to return to Russia. According to Tvoe’s website, now 19 locations are selling the items.
“The selection is constantly updated,” Tvoe wrote in a November 20 social media post. “A reason to visit more often so as not to miss rare items.”
The items, which match Inditex products from previous seasons, carry official Inditex labels and Inditex euro-denominated price tags, according to social media posts. Tvoe posted a teaser on messaging app Telegram in September saying: “Zara, Oysho, Bershka, Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti is now with us in Tvoe stores. Don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret!”
Within days of Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Inditex announced “the termination” of its operation in Russia, then its second-biggest market. Eight months later it said it was selling the business.
In September this year, Russian company Disco Club LLC filed 18 “declarations of conformity” for various types of clothes and listed Inditex as the supplier, according to Russian customs records. The declarations allow goods to be legally imported into Russia but are not themselves import records.
The documents listed Inditex brands Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Lefties and Zara Home as the product trademarks and describe Disco Club as Inditex’s approved representative.
The apparel had previously been destined for sale across several EU countries, according to the tags. Other products were imported from China, according to tags and customs records.
Disco Club was founded by Burkhard Binder, an entrepreneur who co-founded one of Russia’s biggest online fashion retailers and is based in Dubai.
Tvoe told the FT that subject to the company’s “non-disclosure agreements”, it could not “provide any information regarding current contracts”.
It said it was not in any direct supply agreements with Inditex group companies. Disco Club, it said, had performed a “one-time technical service” for the company.
Binder said he was no longer involved in Disco Club’s “current operational activity” and that he had not personally been involved in “any activities related to the distribution of Inditex brands”.
A representative for Inditex said the company had “not granted any authorisation to any company under the name of Disco Club LLC or to Mr Burkhard Binder to carry out any activity on its behalf”.
Inditex is known for maintaining a tight grip on its inventory and supply chain. The group owns about 80 per cent of its retail stores while the remainder operate under franchise agreements with a small group of partners in countries where operations may be riskier or foreign brands are required to work with local partners.
During its war with Ukraine, Russia has developed a thriving parallel import business, with the Russian government in effect allowing a grey market for imports of western goods that no longer enter the country through official channels.
Inditex declined to comment on how its goods were entering the Russian market.
“Inditex does not make comments about third parties unrelated to our group that might commercialise products of our brands in markets where we are not present, as it is the case of Russia, where Inditex does not have activity since the sale of our business,” it said.
Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish in Dubai
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