Dive Brief:

• Actor Reese Witherspoon’s retail venture, Draper James, Friday announced a Series B funding round that garnered $10 million in investments.

• The retailer of clothing, accessories, and home goods is online-only at the moment but will open its first brick-and-mortar store in Witherspoon’s home state of Tennessee, where she spent formative years.

• The retailer is a success story among today's plethora of celebrity brands. Jessica Alba’s Honest Company has suffered setbacks this summer with news that its sunscreen wasn’t protective, and Blake Lively last week announced she was closing her e-retail site, Preserve, to regroup.

Dive Insight:

Witherspoon, like Ellen DeGeneres, who has also recently launched a retail company, furnish sensibilities that come through their identities and what seems to be their own genuine interest in their American niche. Witherspoon plays up her Southern roots and DeGeneres showcases in her good design within her comfortable, no-nonsense, and what she calls “non-gender specific” choices in apparel and other goods.

There’s a lesson here for many other retailers: In an era when fast-fashion retailers scramble to mimic what’s seen on the runways and when teen-focused retailers like American Eagle, Aeropostale, and Abercrombie & Fitch often seem to offer much the same styles, Draper James stands out.

"Draper James was built on the backdrop of Reese's Southern past which is both timely and relevant. Not only is the South having a cultural surge, but it has a rich ecosystem that we tapped into on every level," says Draper James CEO Andrea Hyde, formerly president of now-defunct C Wonder. 

Indeed, as Draper James fills its site with bright colors and decidedly non-bohemian styles, (a t-shirt that says “it’s fall, y’all” is unlikely to be seen at Coachella), it’s also filling its coffers with funding.

“Being born and raised in the South, I take great pride in the brand story,” Witherspoon said in a statement.