Can the Olsens Make The Row the Next Hermès?
An in-depth look at how the famous sisters run one of fashion's most influential brands.
In today’s issue:
How The Row’s secrecy has made it one of fashion’s most influential success stories.
What Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are really like as creative directors.
Why The Row’s clothes are so expensive.
Us Weekly recently relaunched under editor-in-chief Dan Wakeford, and commissioned me to collaborate with them on this week’s cover story about the Olsen twins. My reporting focused on their work on The Row. Ahead, I’m pleased to publish my in-depth look at how the Olsens manage The Row, and what they’ve done to make it so successful, for paid Back Row subscribers.
Days before The Row’s 2025 resort collection walked in Paris in February, staff learned that cell phones would not be welcome. Some invitees were not happy — attending a fashion show without being able to capture content is, of course, almost unheard of in 2024.
But the decision created even bigger headaches for The Row’s team.
Staff had traveled to Paris thinking they would be prepping the usual runway show. They then learned that in addition to doing all the work associated with putting on a show, the team had to execute a photo shoot of the new looks, which Vogue then published. Some models were photographed before the show, and others after. Getting them dressed and undressed accordingly, ensuring no makeup ended up on any of the looks, lengthened already an already exhausting week.
But after all that stress and even pulling an all-nighter, the team had to admit: the result was nice. Tightly controlling the images of the collection seemed to have paid off.
It’s what they had come to expect from their bosses, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who founded The Row in 2006 when they were 20 years old. They have triumphed as the rare celebrity fashion designers whose brand has not just survived but thrived into the 2020s. The no-phone edict, a source told Back Row, most likely came directly from the Olsens. The reasons for it weren’t entirely clear. Maybe it was a public relations move, putting the “stealth” in the “stealth wealth” trend the brand embodies.
Or maybe it stemmed from a fear of knockoffs. As The Row has become one of the hottest luxury brands, its designs have inspired the rest of the industry. Earlier this year, people noticed that Prada appeared to have copied one of The Row’s most popular items, the Margaux handbag. When staff at The Row caught wind of it, they were shocked and upset. Though the Olsens didn’t make their feelings on the suspiciously similar Prada bag widely known, staff could only assume that they weren’t happy about it, either.
The Row sells luxurious simplicity. The brand convinces customers that it makes the perfect T-shirt – or coat or trousers or tote bag – and that its exorbitant prices are commensurate with that perfection. The fervor for the brand, which markets itself by not marketing itself, has exploded since the pandemic. At Bergdorf Goodman, where a former salesperson said the The Row is one of the top-selling labels, the brand’s two fitting rooms are often occupied by customers who easily drop $10,000 on just a few items. Lyst, which tracks shopping analytics, recently placed The Row on its 20 “hottest brands” list. The Olsen twins seem to have ambitions to make The Row the next Hermès, a brand they reference frequently in the office. (Hermès Creative Director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, previously worked as The Row’s design director.) At the same time, insiders described them as wary of exposure. They know that secrecy has been their most valuable PR tool.
But the brand’s magic isn’t just making the right clothes at the right time and avoiding gauche promotion. It’s the Olsens. It’s an unlikely successful second career for celebrity founders, who were cast at nine months old as Michelle Tanner on Full House and became millionaires before they turned 10.
The Olsens, 38, rarely sit for interviews. By working to distance their famous faces from the brand, they’ve managed to build something that outlasted not only many celebrity brands, but also, the industry’s favored lines that were supposed to eclipse them. To learn more about how they really run The Row, I interviewed six former employees, who spoke on background owing to NDAs.
The Olsens — referred in the office mostly as “the twins” or “the girls” but seldom by name — really do run The Row. Mary-Kate mostly oversees the creative, and Ashley mostly operations and finances, though they both come to agreement on decisions and serve as creative director. They’re “very twin,” one person told me, “They speak to each other without words.”
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