Ashley Olsen, the twin that internedfor Zac Posen in her freshman year at NYU, is now the designer behind new label The Row, according to Fashion Week Daily. At a recent event held at Barneys to honor Nicholas Ghesquière, Ashley wore a plaid shrug of sorts with ruffle detail at the collar. The piece had an allure all its own, which is sort of like the Olsen style ethic: a little risky, perhaps a touch unusual, but completely fashionable in the sense that what they wear isn't totally cookie cutter. The fact that the Olsens often get derided in popular media for their outfits is even refreshing—at least what they put on doesn't look like a clone of every other Rachel Zoe-styled young celeb.
As Nitrolicious blog points out, we can only hope that the rest of The Row is just as interesting as Ashley's shrug at the Barneys party. Still, however, one has to marvel at the dexterity of the Olsen twin empire. Here are two young women able to sell scented body spray in CVS, clothing at Wal*Mart, and also, at least in the case of Ashley, have the ability to add an upscale, interesting clothing line into the mix. Regardless of the fact that this ability to produce numerous sources of revenue is motivated by a desire to futher their DualStar empire, it is done in a thoroughly modern way. Their brand is truly democratic--they want their take on fashion (if you can call it that) to be available to everyone--so whether you shop at Walmart or Bergdorf, you'll be able to get a piece of the enigmatic "dumpster chic" the Olsens made popular more than a year ago, and which was so newsworthy Ruth La Ferla
of the Times wrote,
"LAST fall, soon after Mary-Kate Olsen enrolled as one of only two self-made multimillionaires in the freshman class of New York University, she was seen dashing around Greenwich Village wearing floppy hats, huge sunglasses, dust-catcher skirts and street-sweeping cable-knit cardigans.
As fall turned to winter and edged toward spring, Ms. Olsen, 18, pushed her version of ashcan chic to emphatic extremes, an evolution charted by glossy magazines that snoop on stars in everyday activities. The look became dottier and dottier, until it morphed into a kind of homeless masquerade, one that was accented by subtle luxuries like a cashmere muffler, a Balenciaga lariat bag and of course her signature carryout latte from Starbucks.
Ms. Olsen is a fashion pauvre, and so is her equally funky twin, Ashley (the other self-made millionaire N.Y.U. freshman). Their style would seem to mark them as front-runners for Earl Blackwell's worst-dressed list. In fact the twins are trendsetters for the latest hipster look. They are influencing the same generation of girls and young women who fell for them as wholesome child stars, buying their Mattel dolls, and who later, as tweens, spent $750 million a year on denims and pastel tops from the mary-kateandashley line at Wal-Mart.
''The Olsens are the real thing,'' fashion role models for a generation entering adulthood, said Karen Berenson, a stylist who works in New York and Los Angeles. She is unfazed by Mary-Kate Olsen's widely publicized admission last year to a clinic to treat an eating disorder and her continuing recovery. ''She makes skinny girls in baggy clothes look cool,'' Ms. Berenson said.
Teenagers and young women have long taken style cues from celebrities, of course. But the sway of the Olsens is especially surprising because it is a radical swing from influences of recent years, like the flamboyantly sexy, skin-baring style of Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson, as well as the heiress look popularized by Paris Hilton.
Just months ago, ''stylish young women used to wear Gucci or Prada head to toe,'' Ms. Berenson said. Today they are more apt to be seen at supermarkets or parties toting a beat-up Chloe bag, their eyes shaded by enormous, high-priced Laura Biaggiotti sunglasses, the faint suggestion of opulence hidden beneath chadorlike layers of cashmere and ankle-length peasant skirts.
David Wolfe, the creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion trends, was in Las Vegas last month at a fashion trade show. ''The trendiest, coolest people were wearing things like a chiffon skirt with fur boots,'' he said. ''It looked like they had gotten dressed in the dark.''
The new look has acquired a name: Bobo style. ''You know, bohemian bourgeois,'' explained Kathryn Neal, 28, a freelance writer in New York, who is partial to billowing Alexander McQueen pirate shirts worn with beat-up jeans. ''Bobo'' is borrowed from the title of a five-year-old work of pop sociology, ''Bobos in Paradise'' by David Brooks, now an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. He used the term to describe a breed of well-heeled consumers who bashed materialism while embracing all manner of luxury.
Lauren Stover, the author of ''Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge'' (Bulfinch Press, 2004), has noticed the trend, which has cropped up in moneyed communities from Beverly Hills to the Upper West Side, where young women wear grandma's crocheted shawl, moth-eaten cashmere sweaters and scuffed cowboy boots. ''It's perfectly fine to look like a bag lady,'' Ms. Stover said.
The look flies in the face of the conventions of elegance that dominated fashion runways as little as a year ago. More important, it seems to address the discomfort of a younger generation with overt displays of wealth."
--Taken from "Mary-Kate, Fashion Star," New York Times, March 6, 2005 (Sunday), Section 9; Column 5; Style Desk.
Although many still balk at the idea of the Olsen brand of dumpster chic, it does have an upside. As Scribbilista pointed out back in February, "...there is a silver lining to Dumpster Chic: We can all eat carbs again." -StyleChronicles.com
