
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are featured in the April 2011 issue of 'Vogue' magazine. In the interview, the 24-year-old girls turned into style icons prove to be all grown up talking about The Row, designing, formative influences, paparazzi, and their future plans.
Living in a crazy, hectic celebrity world is not an easy thing,
especially when you are a star child. And there are numerous
examples of teenage stars who have grown up in a less-pleasant way.
However, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen prove the contrary managing to
turn into beautiful, mature, responsible girls when on their 18th
birthday they took control of Dualstar.
"The thing about us is we think big. Huge," Mary-Kate told 'Vogue'.
Now, they are planning a brand extension and create bags. "I’m
obsessed with branding," Ashley confesses.
"Dualstar started when we were six. And we had a collection with
Walmart at twelve, which was the upper tier of the tween market. It
was before celebrity designers," Ashley says, speaking about their
designing experience.
"And we were really designing it. It would be jeans, a bit
bohemian, or with a little blazer. It was really fashion-forward,"
Mary-Kate added.
Their unique personal style and special appearances made them
become fashion icons even though
their outfits are sometimes considered as being rather weird and
unusual. When it comes to sharing their wardrobes, Ashley says
that, "Hmm. There’s hers, there’s mine. And a huge ‘maybe’
pile."
In 2006, Ashley created The Row, wanting to make a luxurious basic
white T-shirt to suit many women. Despite the fact that at its very
beginnings they had to face a rather skeptic public, the collection
managed to grow. "We hired a showroom and talked buyers through,"
remembers Ashley. "People would drill us about fabric, where we’d
make it," says Mary-Kate. "The first season, customers bought it,
so the stores came back. And drilled us again."
Although they are extremely different personalities, the Olsen
twins make a dynamic, complex and fruitful duo in the business
world. Ashley is often considered as being the financial brain,
while Mary-Kate the creative. "Some of our memories are shared. We
don’t know what actually happened to whom. One of us was stung by a
bee, but we can’t remember who, because we both felt it," says
Mary-Kate.
As for their acting career, Ashley told 'Vogue' that, "I am so
proud of what we did. We made kids smile every day. But we had done
the most we could do." Then, Mary-Kate admits that leaving acting
behind "was a fear, but also, an exhale."
On the designing influences, Mary-Kate says that, "We had our
observations about fashion changing, when it went from being so
eighties to the slipdress and the dark lip. We’d see students
coming back from college in grunge. And then Lori Loughlin [Full
House] had all this great Donna Karan."
Future plans? Of course. "I want to run a studio. I’d probably like
to manage other people on their brands. It could be an artist. A
young designer. It could be an existing brand," Ashley admits.
Photos courtesy of Vogue
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