After launching The House of LR&C online in 2020 alongside former Lululemon CEO Christine Day, Russell Wilson and Ciara plan to open the fashion start-up’s first brick-and-mortar shop next month in Seattle, CNBC’s Lauren Thomas reported this week.
The store will be near the company’s Seattle headquarters and will carry apparel from Wilson’s Good Man Brand and LITA by Ciara, as well as Human Nation, a gender-inclusive clothing line under the House of LR&C brand. The company also expects to open several more permanent stores across the country, and will look for a bigger space in Seattle’s University Village. The House of LR&C products are already available online through the company’s website and through wholesalers like Nordstrom and Kohl’s.
According to its website, The House of LR&C was “built to democratize retail and redefine the way the fashion industry works, to make it inclusive, community-led and, above all, to create large scale positive change.” The company focuses on sustainability and strives to use materials that pose lesser danger to the environment. “If we don’t actually make fashion sustainable and transparent, then we’re never going to change the industry,” Day said. “That’s what we believe the whitespace is and that nobody is doing well.”
Three percent of the company’s profits are given to Wilson’s Why Not You Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth through education, health, and fighting poverty.
Richard Collings of Axios also reported this week that the company had received funding from Harlem Capital, a firm that invests specifically in women- and minority-led startups. “The House of LR&C grew revenue by roughly 70% over the past year from seven figures to eight figures, according to Day,” Collings writes. “The startup has both strong digital sales and a strong wholesale business. Wholesale partners such as Nordstrom are profitable channels for The House of LR&C and provide valuable marketing or brand exposure to a new set of customers, Day said.”