The Olsen twins are the new faces of Badgley Mischka. For the first time since their Ashley and Mary Kate empire began producing perfume, clothing, and make-up for stores like Wal-Mart, the twins are using their star power for the advancement of a line other than their own.
What's curious about this advertising campaign is that besides their movie "New York Minute" (which tanked at the box office), the twins really have not done much in the past couple of years besides appear in a massive quantity of paparazzi photos. Sure, they were interviewed in magazines (Ashley in Harper's Bazaar in July 2005, and Mary Kate in the January 2006 edition of W) and have appeared in various promotional tours in Australia and Canada for their Dualstar empire, but other than that, the Olsens have kept a relatively low profile (besides random appearances to of course buy enormous coffees or party in New York City).
So then why did Badgley Mischka pick the twins for their new ad campaign? According to The Daily Dish, the Badgley Mischka designing duo picked the twins because of their "'sensual glamour'". Besides the unbelievability of two nineteen year-old, waif-like girls emanating sensual glamour, the appearance of the twins as the new face/faces (they are fraternal twins, you know) of Badgley Mischka demonstrates the power of paparazzi to catapult you from 'tween purgatory to fashion icon status. Since the public really has not heard much from the twins since they started NYU (Mary Kate subsequently took a "leave of absence" from the school), and the only thing we've seen them in is Us Weekly and Star, we don't know what to think about this new campaign--where were the other 999,998 women who emanated sensual glamour the day they picked the Olsens?
What trouble us is that we're greeted by the Badgely Mischka advertisment as if the general adult public had already been made aware of the twins' significance beyond their lip gloss line at Wal-Mart. But we haven't. Still, people seem to love the Olsens despite their well-orchestrated lives as "there/not there" celebrities. Surely Badgely Mischka do.
