Over the past few seasons, I can’t help but wonder if fashion media and The Row are in cahoots. When the design duo Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen began banishing phones at their show, the industry received it as a radical act, that something earthy and intellectual was taking place, no matter that the brand is favored by wives and daughters of some of the most obscenely wealthy men in America (a selection of whom are the designers’ friends), celebrities, and influencers. Well to-do women often pay others to stand in line for them at their sample sales. At best, it is a testament to the current insular and homogeneous state of fashion media.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are in a possession of sizable archive of pieces by some of the greatest designers in the fashion industry: Martin Margiela, Yohji Yamamoto, Azzedine Alaïa, to name a few. Over the past few years they have leaned heavily on these archives, and have referenced, perhaps too liberally, without citing their sources. More recently, their collections, and pardon my French, seem to take the piss out of everyone, mediocre designs and classic remakes with a massive price tag. Some may argue one is paying for The Row’s quality. You ought to reevaluate your understanding and appreciation of quality if that’s the case.
)
