Thanks to boring styles, plummeting consumer spending, and a tendency to leave their employees with Post Retail Folding Disorder, the Gap has finally been overtaken by as the world's largest clothing retailer. All hail the new #1: Spain's mega fashion retailer Zara, who we've really never even heard of. The chain, based in A Coruña, Spain, has apparently been a dominating force in Europe and Latin America -- but has only a handful of stores in the US.

Zara's parent company Inditex has managed to spread its successful chain of stores far and wide by some kind of weird business model that involves keeping up with the latest trends in fashion -- something that the Gap probably should have been focusing on. Zara's unique model includes in-house design teams and encourages staff members to point out any new trends to keep the designers up to date. Not only that, but Zara apparently spends very little on advertising. Instead, they use their stores as a means of drawing attention to their brands.