“Retail is a big part of our future,” Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown told Business Insider magazine. “We think there’s a really great opportunity to rethink retail and rethink how shoes are tried on, and [to] just think through every step of that process.”

Indeed, one need only visit the 1,450-square-foot New York City store to see a dramatic way to “rethink” the trying on of shoes: a human-size “hamster wheel” customers use as a treadmill on which to run or walk for testing out the items before buying. “It represents an immersive way to shop,” said Caitlin Neyer, head of retail brands at FRCH Design Worldwide. “You can not only try [the merchandise] on, but [also] experience it. That’s the wave of the future.”

Meanwhile, the company has introduced a new color — a deep blue it calls Starry Night — especially for the New York City store, which also offers shoelaces inspired by the colors used in maps of the New York City subway system.

The Allbirds signature product is the Wool Runner, a shoe made from New Zealand merino wool. Last year the company came out with the Lounger as well, and also with a children’s shoe line it calls Smallbirds (child-size versions of the adult styles). The designs, whether lace-up or slipper style, follow the so-called “athleisure” product trend (market-speak for sports apparel fashionable enough for consumers to wear both at the gym and in the activities of daily life). Thus, at $95 a pair, the shoes are suitable for everyday wear.

Co-founder Brown, who was born in England and now lives in San Francisco, was a soccer player in New Zealand, a career that took him all the way to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, in South Africa. In New Zealand he met his Allbirds business partner, Joey Zwillinger, with whom he came up with the concept of an easy-care, comfortable running shoe made from merino wool. Sheep are abundant in New Zealand — six to every human, by some data — and their wool is so soft that its use in footwear can make socks unnecessary. Still, though Merino wool is known to be a soft yet durable fabric for sweaters and other clothing, Brown and Zwillinger needed to toughen it up for use in athletic shoes. Allbirds worked with an Italian textile mill to achieve this, though the shoes are assembled in South Korea. In any case, the design has been successful.

“They are the most comfortable shoes,” writes Joanna Goddard, founder of the Cup of Jo lifestyle blog. “It feels like you’re wearing slippers. Now when I try regular running shoes, they feel like cardboard boxes.”

The concept launched on online funding site Kickstarter. Since its establishment, Allbirds has raised some $27.5 million in capital (including an influx of $17.5 million from a Tiger Global Management fund) for opening stores, building up the online business globally and developing new sustainable materials. “We think there’s a pipeline of other materials, many of which we’ve already been working on, and this funding will really allow us to double down on that innovation that will really fuel the growth of the business going forward,” Brown told Business Insider.

Ultimately, shoes are not to be the company’s only objective, because new sustainable resources will lead to the introduction of new products, Zwillinger says. Meanwhile, Allbirds shoes can even be machine-washed and yet maintain their fit, according to Brown. The Allbirds marketing approach involves avoidance of the sorts of labels and logos prevalent with the synthetic shoes Brown received as gifts from major brands during his soccer days. Moreover, in keeping with the company’s environmentalist values, packing material is kept to a minimum.

“A year ago Allbirds was a pair of wool shoes designed by a New Zealander, not something you’d peg as a fashion statement,” wrote Theodore Schleifer, a senior editor at Recode, a technology website that focuses on the Silicon Valley business scene. “Now … Allbirds are what you wear if you work in Silicon Valley or the New York tech scene.”