It’s no secret that De Soto is not a bustling city filled with shops and businesses. That is why many were surprised to hear about the opening of a new clothing store, Aventura Men’s and Women’s Clothing, in downtown De Soto.

The store was opened Nov. 21, 2015 by Manny Garcia.

What is now a successful business started as a few sales from Garcia’s mom’s closet.

“At our old house, my mom had a pretty big closet filled with clothes from red carpet events or social events. When she didn’t wear them, she would sell them,” Garcia said.

The popularity quickly grew and soon the sales became more regular.

“We started having the quarterly closet sales where my friends and her [Garcia’s mother’s] friends would go to my house and just buy things from my mom’s closet,” Garcia said. “We eventually started buying wholesale clothes, so we were now just buying clothes that weren’t even hers to sell to our customers.”

With the addition of wholesale clothing, the clientele and business continued to grow.

“Eventually we started getting a pretty good clientele base who would ask us for certain kinds of clothing,” Garcia said. “It started growing from her closet to my basement until eventually it grew so big that we opened a store in Texas.”

However, last year Garcia received a call from his father saying that there was a spot open across from the bank, and with inventory still coming to his house in De Soto and to his mom’s closet, Garcia decided to open Aventura in De Soto.

Along with the unique origin of the store came the origin of the store’s name.

“She named her closet Narnia, because when people went in it they got lost, like in the movie,” Garcia said. “We couldn’t name the store Narnia so we said, ‘Ok, well when you go to Narnia it’s like an adventure’ so we named it “adventure,” or Aventura.”

The store is truly an adventure, and for everyone, not just women.

“If you look around the store, there’s something for everybody,” Garcia said. “We try to have a little bit of everything, and our clothes are brand new.”

With continued awareness of the store spreading through the community, Garcia has many goals for the future of Aventura.

“We are trying to expand by the end of this year into Olathe, and we want to open by April of next year in Leawood,” Garcia said.

Along with the expansion of new stores, Aventura also has fashion shows and community events, including a float in the De Soto Days Parade, which will be planned throughout the next year.

“We are slowly getting more recognition here in De Soto,” Garcia said. “It was pretty hard at first. A lot of people were unsure about it at first; they would come and poke their head in and think ‘should we come in?’ but it’s like ‘come on in!’”

Even with only a small amount of recognition at first, Garcia is grateful to be in De Soto.

“It’s a small, tight knit community, but thankfully we’ve been very much appreciated by most of the town,” Garcia said.