Remember those cute little blonde tots that used to grin so mischievously at the camera on Full House? Or the charming tweens who solved mysteries on your little sisters favorite straight to video movies? Well the fact that your kids probably only know the Olsen twins as bonafide, grown up fashion designers can only mean one thing. We’re all getting old.
As head designers of three successful clothing lines, The Row, Elizabeth & James and Olsenboye, these two twenty four year olds have created a fashion empire that has generated more than a billion in retail sales so far for their multi-hyphenate company, Dualstar. But in the April issue of Vogue, the girls share the fact that at first, buyers were as dubious of the idea that they were actually grown ups as anyone else who remembers them from the days when they still wore diapers on national television.
“We hired a showroom and talked buyers through,” Ashley recalls.
“People would drill us about fabric, where we’d make it,” Mary-Kate adds. “The first season, customers bought it, so the stores came back. And drilled us again.”
The girls, knowing they had no formal design training and were still very young, despite the fact that they sat at the head of a media empire, seem to have accepted the fact that they were a tough sell from the get go.
“It’s a fair question,” Ashley notes, “but Dualstar started when we were six. And we had a collection with Walmart at 12, which was the upper tier of the tween market. It was before celebrity designers.”
“And we were really designing it,” Mary-Kate points out. “It would be jeans, a bit bohemian, or with a little blazer. It was really fashion-forward.”
The girls’ hard work is starting to pay off. They received their first CDFA nomination this year, and they’re pushing on full steam ahead.
“I want to run a studio,” Ashley told Vogue. “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.”
“The thing about us,” Mary-Kate added,” is we think big. Huge.”
As disorienting as it is to hear the Olsen twins sounding so grown up, it’s always nice to see child actors surviving and thriving into adulthood. The Olsens have had some struggles with eating disorders along the way, but they seem firmly on their feet now. We can only wait to see what they do next!
