Zalora

Zalora is an online fashion retailer launched in Southeast Asia in early 2012 and run from Singapore. It was one of the regional shopping sites set up with backing from the German company builder Rocket Internet, and it sells clothing, shoes, accessories and beauty products from a long list of labels, lingerie and swimwear among them. Zalora does not make bras. It is a storefront, and in much of the region a very large one.

A Rocket Internet clone for Southeast Asia

Rocket Internet's method in the early 2010s was to take a proven web business model and launch it quickly in markets where no local player had yet done it at scale. Zalando was the European template for fashion. Zalora was the Southeast Asian version, opened in several countries at once in 2012, with separate local entities: in Indonesia, for example, it was set up that year under PT Fashion Eservices Indonesia, with Catherine Sutjahyo as co-founder there. The Indonesian Wikipedia describes Zalora as one of Rocket Internet's main investments in Singapore.

Money arrived fast, as it tended to for Rocket ventures in that period. Zalora raised about 100 million dollars in one round in 2013 and about 112 million dollars in another the same year. Late in 2013 it introduced a private label, Ezra, and it became the exclusive online distributor for the British high-street chain River Island in Southeast Asia. In early 2014 it announced plans to open a marketplace so that outside sellers could list directly. Parker Gundersen was appointed chief executive in August 2016.

Inside Global Fashion Group

In 2014 Rocket Internet and the Swedish investor Kinnevik pulled their emerging-market fashion sites into one company, Global Fashion Group, or GFG. Its sister sites included Lamoda in Russia, Jabong in India, The Iconic in Australia and New Zealand and Dafiti in Latin America. GFG floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in July 2019 and is registered in Luxembourg. For 2024 the group reported revenue of about 743.5 million euros and net merchandise value of about 1.1 billion euros, with Christoph Barchewitz as chief executive. Its private labels include Zalora, Zalia, Lost Ink, 24:01 and Something Borrowed.

The group has been shrinking its map rather than growing it, closing Argentina in 2023 and Chile in 2025. Zalora's own site currently links to storefronts in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Lingerie in a hot climate

Zalora's women's catalog carries lingerie and sleepwear sections, and "lingerie" and "bikini" both appear among the most-searched terms on the Singapore site. The brands listed among its top names include global groups such as Calvin Klein, Mango and H&M, whose underwear and swim lines sit beside clothing from the same labels.

Selling underwear in the tropics shapes the assortment in practical ways. Light wireless bras, breathable cotton and microfiber briefs and swimwear sell all year in Singapore and Jakarta, while heavy padded and lined pieces matter less than they would in Europe. Modesty also matters in several Zalora markets; the group's Zalia label was built around modest fashion for Muslim customers, a reminder that one Southeast Asian site is really several very different markets.

What the archive holds

The seven Zalora pieces in this archive are retail listings rather than editorial products: everyday bras, briefs and swim separates photographed for a product grid. They show how many women in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Jakarta now encounter lingerie, as one category among many on a phone screen, sold by a site that started as a copy of a European model and became a regional retailer in its own right.

Last updated October 7, 2026