The Future Of Fashion, Part Eight: Ashley And Mary-Kate Olsen
Dualstar, the world headquarters of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen’s numerous enterprises, isn’t some high-tech fortress. set on a nondescript Chelsea block, it’s a low-key loft building that seems to have evaded condo-ization. step inside and you could be entering the studio of any up-and-coming downtown designer. there are the bare wood floors, the nice flowers, the cartons of takeout food. it’s all very normal, and you sense that’s important to these refugees from massive childhood fame.
at a stage in life where many of their peers are vying for a slot on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew, the Olsens are appearing in 130 stores worldwide with their luxury fashion label The Row, and they have been nominated for the Swarovski Award for Womenswear, the top honor for emerging talent, at next month’s Council of Fashion Designers of America gala. they sell their line Olsenboye to JCPenney at the same time that they sell The Row to Bergdorf Goodman, they deliberately aim The Row at women much older than themselves, and though they were born into the digital generation, their embrace of social media is a wary one. still just 24, they are literally part of the future of fashion.
specifically on The Row, where does the design process start for you?
A: it all starts with the fabrics…then we go into kind of silhouette development, so we start figuring out our silhouettes, what we’re liking, what we’re leaning towards, an evolution of the previous season, certain pieces, so it really starts with this stylized proportion. then, through that process, we start our pattern making off the silhouettes that we’re liking and the consistent themes that we start finding, the shapes. so we start twisting the fabrics and then we start trying different fabrics and patterns. and once we have all the fabrics, we have about three weeks to produce the collection.
that’s a different process from a lot of designers, who are inspired by this trip they just took or a photo they came across.
MK: you’d have to take a lot of trips, no?
The Row has become known for a sort of minimalist luxury. do you feel your last collection [Fall 2011] was a departure?
A: more elaborate.
MK: we haven’t really done a lot of color, and slowly over the seasons we’ve explored that a bit. and different techniques as well when it comes to the fur, beading, lace. but if you go through our entire collection, you’ve seen it all before. meaning, pieces repeat. that fur T-shirt, for example, that’s this T-shirt [points to plain one she’s wearing] from a couple of seasons ago, so it’s always consistent. it’s just about how we can evolve and also give the option to either buy this version or that version, creating a story.
do you have an ideal customer in mind for The Row?
A: i think a lot of different women pop into my mind, just because we were raised by a lot of very chic women and just constantly working..so i think we do think of a lot of different women. what’s great is that it really is an ageless collection. i think 30 to 60 is the core of our customers, and it’s someone who’s really educated on the fabrics and the fit. that’s the information that’s trickled back to us and it’s kind of what it is.
..you’ve deliberately set out to appeal to a broader cross section.
A: when we first started the T-shirts and the dresses, we tried it on bodies that were our bodies and we tried it on our parent’s bodies and our friends’ parents’ bodies. so that was kind of an important process that we took in the beginning, as to why something works on someone older, why it doesn’t, why it works on someone young, and why it doesn’t, and to not get rid of a customer base.
that’s pretty unusual, to be in charge of both the business and creative sides.
A: you do want to keep your creative team just creative. you don’t want to bog them down with numbers. i’ve always been a business and creative person. that’s the way my brain works. i like numbers..but i also love the creative process and i love working with my hands. so between the two of us, we’re so lucky that we have someone to balance and to talk through ideas constantly, so it’s not just one person banging their head against a wall. we do have a dialogue, a constant dialogue, whether it’s regarding our financial infrastructure or a T-shirt. whatever it is, there’s a constant communication.
A: and i think that it keeps you focused and grounded and lighthearted, and it kind of always puts things in perspective in regards to other things, in regards to the rest of the world.
how has being women affected your designs?
A: i think the way being women has helped us in our designs is that we do a lot of research on what women like, what women don’t like.
MK: also, for ourselves, we’re really petite, so ever since we were six, eight, we’ve been cutting down clothes to fit our bodies, and that never went away..just the little things, how the waistband fits, what you want against your skin, and what’s flattering to your body and different body types.
A: what you’ll show and what you won’t show.
MK: women that will show their arms and won’t show their arms; there’s so many things that women think about.
have any particular designers inspired you?
A: Fortuny’s always been my favorite, just the ease and the beauty and the colours.
MK: Yohji.
A: Yohji’s always just magical.
MK: there’s a lot of designers.
A: Christian Lacroix.
MK: i mean, old Donna and Calvin Klein, and there are so many.
one of the criticisms of contemporary design is that there isn’t enough focus on technique, but technique seems to be important to you.
A: i think how we gained a lot of our techniques and our knowledge is by doing our research and looking at older pieces of clothing and taking it to a pattern maker, so our factory could digest what it is and how it was accomplished and why you could do it back then and you can’t do it now, and how can you accomplish the same thing now. so each season, more and more, we dive deeper into techniques, especially older techniques that aren’t necessarily utilised today.
there’s a lot of pressure on brands to have a digital strategy now, but you’re from the digital generation and avoid that. you have Twitter feeds for each line but you don’t have personal accounts to promote your stuff, the way, say, Lady Gaga does. and you know, if you started on Twitter tomorrow, you’d have millions of followers overnight.
A: that gives me so much anxiety.
MK: we’ve spent our whole lives trying to not let people have that accessibility, so it would go against everything we’ve done in our lives to not be in the public.
but you can see yourselves branching out into different fields beyond fashion one day?
A: who knows?
MK: you never know.
A: branching out to retirement.
how important is eco fashion going forward?
A: i think there’s a lot of information out there, and i think there’s a lot of information that we also don’t have, as far as what it means to be conscious. is it shipping? is it the dyeing process? there’s so many parts that actually do affect our air and our water that just having 100 percent organic doesn’t mean 100 percent organic anymore.
- Dirk Standen for Style.com
Dualstar, the world headquarters of Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen’s numerous enterprises, isn’t some high-tech fortress. set on a nondescript Chelsea block, it’s a low-key loft building that seems to have evaded condo-ization. step inside and you could be entering the studio of any up-and-coming downtown designer. there are the bare wood floors, the nice flowers, the cartons of takeout food. it’s all very normal, and you sense that’s important to these refugees from massive childhood fame.
at a stage in life where many of their peers are vying for a slot on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew, the Olsens are appearing in 130 stores worldwide with their luxury fashion label The Row, and they have been nominated for the Swarovski Award for Womenswear, the top honor for emerging talent, at next month’s Council of Fashion Designers of America gala. they sell their line Olsenboye to JCPenney at the same time that they sell The Row to Bergdorf Goodman, they deliberately aim The Row at women much older than themselves, and though they were born into the digital generation, their embrace of social media is a wary one. still just 24, they are literally part of the future of fashion.
specifically on The Row, where does the design process start for you?
A: it all starts with the fabrics…then we go into kind of silhouette development, so we start figuring out our silhouettes, what we’re liking, what we’re leaning towards, an evolution of the previous season, certain pieces, so it really starts with this stylized proportion. then, through that process, we start our pattern making off the silhouettes that we’re liking and the consistent themes that we start finding, the shapes. so we start twisting the fabrics and then we start trying different fabrics and patterns. and once we have all the fabrics, we have about three weeks to produce the collection.
that’s a different process from a lot of designers, who are inspired by this trip they just took or a photo they came across.
MK: you’d have to take a lot of trips, no?
The Row has become known for a sort of minimalist luxury. do you feel your last collection [Fall 2011] was a departure?
A: more elaborate.
MK: we haven’t really done a lot of color, and slowly over the seasons we’ve explored that a bit. and different techniques as well when it comes to the fur, beading, lace. but if you go through our entire collection, you’ve seen it all before. meaning, pieces repeat. that fur T-shirt, for example, that’s this T-shirt [points to plain one she’s wearing] from a couple of seasons ago, so it’s always consistent. it’s just about how we can evolve and also give the option to either buy this version or that version, creating a story.
do you have an ideal customer in mind for The Row?
A: i think a lot of different women pop into my mind, just because we were raised by a lot of very chic women and just constantly working..so i think we do think of a lot of different women. what’s great is that it really is an ageless collection. i think 30 to 60 is the core of our customers, and it’s someone who’s really educated on the fabrics and the fit. that’s the information that’s trickled back to us and it’s kind of what it is.
..you’ve deliberately set out to appeal to a broader cross section.
A: when we first started the T-shirts and the dresses, we tried it on bodies that were our bodies and we tried it on our parent’s bodies and our friends’ parents’ bodies. so that was kind of an important process that we took in the beginning, as to why something works on someone older, why it doesn’t, why it works on someone young, and why it doesn’t, and to not get rid of a customer base.
that’s pretty unusual, to be in charge of both the business and creative sides.
A: you do want to keep your creative team just creative. you don’t want to bog them down with numbers. i’ve always been a business and creative person. that’s the way my brain works. i like numbers..but i also love the creative process and i love working with my hands. so between the two of us, we’re so lucky that we have someone to balance and to talk through ideas constantly, so it’s not just one person banging their head against a wall. we do have a dialogue, a constant dialogue, whether it’s regarding our financial infrastructure or a T-shirt. whatever it is, there’s a constant communication.
A: and i think that it keeps you focused and grounded and lighthearted, and it kind of always puts things in perspective in regards to other things, in regards to the rest of the world.
how has being women affected your designs?
A: i think the way being women has helped us in our designs is that we do a lot of research on what women like, what women don’t like.
MK: also, for ourselves, we’re really petite, so ever since we were six, eight, we’ve been cutting down clothes to fit our bodies, and that never went away..just the little things, how the waistband fits, what you want against your skin, and what’s flattering to your body and different body types.
A: what you’ll show and what you won’t show.
MK: women that will show their arms and won’t show their arms; there’s so many things that women think about.
have any particular designers inspired you?
A: Fortuny’s always been my favorite, just the ease and the beauty and the colours.
MK: Yohji.
A: Yohji’s always just magical.
MK: there’s a lot of designers.
A: Christian Lacroix.
MK: i mean, old Donna and Calvin Klein, and there are so many.
one of the criticisms of contemporary design is that there isn’t enough focus on technique, but technique seems to be important to you.
A: i think how we gained a lot of our techniques and our knowledge is by doing our research and looking at older pieces of clothing and taking it to a pattern maker, so our factory could digest what it is and how it was accomplished and why you could do it back then and you can’t do it now, and how can you accomplish the same thing now. so each season, more and more, we dive deeper into techniques, especially older techniques that aren’t necessarily utilised today.
there’s a lot of pressure on brands to have a digital strategy now, but you’re from the digital generation and avoid that. you have Twitter feeds for each line but you don’t have personal accounts to promote your stuff, the way, say, Lady Gaga does. and you know, if you started on Twitter tomorrow, you’d have millions of followers overnight.
A: that gives me so much anxiety.
MK: we’ve spent our whole lives trying to not let people have that accessibility, so it would go against everything we’ve done in our lives to not be in the public.
but you can see yourselves branching out into different fields beyond fashion one day?
A: who knows?
MK: you never know.
A: branching out to retirement.
how important is eco fashion going forward?
A: i think there’s a lot of information out there, and i think there’s a lot of information that we also don’t have, as far as what it means to be conscious. is it shipping? is it the dyeing process? there’s so many parts that actually do affect our air and our water that just having 100 percent organic doesn’t mean 100 percent organic anymore.
- Dirk Standen for Style.com
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