Hot Shoe Startup Rothy's Hops Into Plano's Neighborhood Goods

Rothy's, a startup online shoe brand, is making its Texas debut Friday in Neighborhood Goods just as the closely watched new retail concept in Plano's Legacy West reaches its six-month anniversary.The three-year-old shoe brand, which makes footwear out of fiber spun from recycled plastic bottles, has used social media to reach customers and got a big celebrity bump last year when Meghan Markle wore a pair on a trip to Australia just as the royal family announced that she was pregnant. Now it's trying out television ads, said Lesley Clifford, director of merchandising at Rothy's. Still, there's much to be said about letting customers touch and try on shoes, she said.That's the whole point of Neighborhood Goods, which opened its first store in November and has announced plans for a store in New York City and possibly others after raising a $8.8 million in February, a second round of funding that brought its total to $14.5 million. The New Age department store has modular fixtures that can create any size space for a tenant, and it opened with 24 brands that included Serena Williams' apparel and Reese Witherspoon's Draper James brand. The store now has 35 brands. Some have left and others came in — by design.  Continue reading...