Existing on the periphery of fashion’s designer merry-go-round, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have spent the past decade building one of America’s most sophisticated fashion houses from scratch. Estranged from their celebrity past, the sisters have banked on authentic design principles to create The Row (after Savile Row), a name which is today practically whispered amongst the fashion and design élite. It’s a code word for some of the industry’s most luxurious garments, pieces that eschew vulgar embellishment and artifice in favour of clean lines, qualitative textiles, and a sensual, enveloping femininity. Mary-Kate and Ashley spoke to Vogue Italia after The Row’s F/W 2018-19 show, in the privacy of Le Bristol – their preferred hotel in Paris for over a decade. Its decorative interior might seem at odds with their purist style, but it’s a telling sign of their highly-developed aesthetic – equally at home with old world opulence as it is amongst concrete and Mid-Century Modern furniture.
“We have been surrounded by really cultured, beautiful people our whole lives and it was definitely a part of our upbringing,” says Ashley, whose studies in architecture at Gallatin School of Individualized Study, part of NYU, have fed her love for the work of names like Tadao Ando, Peter Zumthor, and Frank Lloyd Wright. “I think that when it comes to furniture and architecture, we’ve had a love for beautiful things in general since very early on. I would say that Ashley and I have always been fascinated,” said Mary-Kate.
“We actually ended up starting The Row towards the end of my second semester at NYU,” continued Ashley. “We just started making things while taking classes and it ended up turning into what it is today. I mean, now I study architecture a lot more than I thought I probably would, based off building stores.” In 2016, they called upon French interior designer Jacques Grange to decorate their first New York boutique, and an ongoing collaboration with prestigious art and design galleries has seen a rotation of world-class paintings, sculptures, and antique furniture decorate the East 71st street townhouse.
“We are constantly looking at new galleries and meeting new people and developing relationships with these very special collectors and curators and learning from them,” said Mary-Kate. “Certain people taught me about specific movements and periods. Working with Magen H gallery has been super interesting, and Jacques Lacoste, Patrick Seguin, and DeLorenzo in NYC.”
Born out of this bowerbird spirit, an unexpected collaboration with a dead Japanese-American sculptor became the artistic centrepiece of The Row’s F/W 2018-19 show, when Dakin Hart, senior curator of The Noguchi Museum in New York, contacted the sisters after discovering two of Noguchi’s sculptures had found a temporary home in the brand’s New York store. Hart selected thirteen sculptures to show inside The Row’s headquarters as an exquisitely serene installation, around which the models walked. “I think what pushed us further throughout the whole process was knowing the actual pieces they were going to bring in – we wanted it to seem like the models were walking through an actual sculpture garden,” said Mary-Kate of the partnership. “So, whether it was the layering, or a few pieces with holes in them, and it kind of made us want to see certain garments walk past certain sculptures, to play off each other.”
With such credible, institutional support and approval, there is little doubt that The Row has surpassed any early criticism for its high price point and celebrity connection – the former justified by world class artisanal production in the USA, France and Italy, and the latter played down by the sisters’ discreet, anti-publicity strategy that puts the clothes first and their personas second. Moreover, they’ve created a seamless lifestyle brand, one that makes perfect sense from A to Z – whether it means wearing their precious clothes, visiting their East or West coast boutiques, or simply following the sisters’ evolving Instagram moodboard. “Looking at a beautiful piece of art doesn’t really inspire us from an apparel or accessories point of view,” said Mary-Kate. “But more for the world that we live in and what we think about when we’re thinking about The Row, it inspires us to continue to explore and find that love again.”
Vogue Italia, May 2018, n.813, pag. 96
It looks so comfortable. Both of them look very good 
