| | |  | Olsen Twins News & Gossip
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| | Olsen Twins Get Artsy in the Big Apple | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Celebrity Gossip |
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Heading out to take a peek at some art, the Olsen Twins were spotted visiting a gallery in New York City on Wednesday (June 1).
Joined by a friend, Mary Kate and Ashley headed to Manhattan?s Chelsea neighborhood to check out the displays at a Matt Groening exhibition.
Meanwhile, the former ?Full House? gals recently announced that they will not be using their own faces to promote their fashion line, The Row, to avoid it being branded as a celebrity fashion line.
Of the decision, Mary-Kate explained, "We were aware of [the growing trend of] celebrity brands. We were trying to get away from that because we'd already done it with Wal-Mart, and we did it well. We'd been there, we'd done that."
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| | Ashley Olsen: Gearing Up for StyleMint Launch | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Celebrity Gossip |
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Always on the go, Ashley Olsen was spotted arriving for a flight at LAX Airport in Los Angeles, CA on Monday night (May 30).
The former "Full House" star was her usual attention averse self as she tried to hide from paparazzi while easing into the metro terminal.
Continuing to build her fashion empire with twin sister Mary-Kate, Miss Olsen is setting out to promote their latest venture StyleMint, which is an online venture in partnership with the e-commerce umbrella site BeachMint.
Focused on t-shirts, the members-only project launches on July 1, with Ashley telling WWD, ?The online world of communicating directly with the customers is amazing."
She added, "From the whole process of how you speak to the customer, how the customer will speak back to you, to why did that person buy the blue one versus the Pink one and then having all that data. Where is she located? How old is she? It?s like they have these algorithms that they keep plugging in and then they can change one word on their landing site and all of a sudden see a huge switch and know exactly why, down to the mathematical part of it. It?s very interesting.?
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| | Mary Kate Olsen's Style Wars Celebration | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Celebrity Gossip |
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Making the most of her evening, Mary Kate Olsen was spotted at the Style Wars Celebration in New York City last night (May 25).
The actress/designer schmoozed with Catherine Keener at the private affair, hosted by The Common Good and Levi?s Film Workshop.
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| | Ashley Olsen's Wet-Haired Week Kickoff in NYC | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Celebrity Gossip |
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Getting a jump start on her week, Ashley Olsen was spotted leaving her New York City apartment on Monday (May 9).
With her hair still wet from the shower, the former ?Full House? gal carried a stack of books and paper as she headed out to tend to her day?s duties.
Over the weekend, the paparazzi caught up with Ms Olsen, who was joined by a mystery male, presumably her new fling.
The twosome hurried to their vehicle after enjoying dinner at The Darby, a swanky Big Apple eatery.
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| | Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen scored the cover of Newsweek | | Added 13 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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The Olsens made the cover of Newsweek! Can you believe it? They got the cover because of The Row, their luxury clothing line which is the crowning achievement of their billion-dollar company. You can read the full piece at Newsweek here - I was hoping for a good interview, but for the most part the piece just reads like dry copy about Mary-Kate and Ashley?s company and what people think about it. The quotes are few and far between, but if you?re interested in fashion, the business of fashion and entrepreneurship, it?s definitely worth a read. Here are some highlights:
The collection [The Row] ?embraced by older women with little patience for celebrity frippery?has been worn by business executives and first lady Michelle Obama.
Critical validation has come in the form of a nomination from the Council of Fashion Designers of America as the year?s best new womenswear designers. They have been recognized alongside Joseph Altuzarra, who worked at Givenchy, and Prabal Gurung, a Bill Blass alumnus. The winners will be announced in New York on June 6.
The Olsens, who will be 25 in June, did not go to fashion or art school. They have built a considerable reputation by obsessing over darts (they hate them), gamely absorbing the blows of skeptical retailers, and keeping their celebrity mostly under wraps. They also have become champions in a longstanding effort to save this country?s garment factories. In 1965, factories in America produced 95 percent of the clothes sold in this country, according to savethegarmentcenter.org. Today, only 5 percent of the clothes sold here are produced locally. The future of New York?s garment center is no longer in mass production, activists argue, but rather in small-scale, high-end manufacturing that relies on skilled artisans.
The Olsens have taken up this blue-collar cause by producing their collection in factories in New York and, to a lesser degree, Los Angeles. (Their handbags are produced in Italy, as are a few of their superfine knits.)
?I really believe in our being able to create here and utilize the skills that people have here,? says Ashley. ?The skill set is here. Our main issue is that some of the machinery is gone, so some knitwear is produced in Italy. But whether it?s clothing or cars, I believe in manufacturing as close to home as possible.?
Their holding company, Dualstar Entertainment Group, was created with their then-manager, Robert Thorne, when they were about 6 years old as a vehicle for selling Olsen-branded merchandise and projects. By age 10, they had a line of clothing in Walmart; eventually they branched out with a contemporary line called Elizabeth & James, named after their siblings. At 18, they took over Dualstar, buying out Thorne.
?Thank God our parents wanted us to be involved,? Ashley says. ?Running a fashion company, it?s just as important to understand numbers as it is to have a design point of view,? Mary-Kate says. The company now has annual sales of $1 billion, according to Forbes.
The Row, founded in 2006 and named after Savile Row, began with Ashley?s search for a perfect white T shirt: fashion?s holy grail of fit, comfort, durability, and price. She was dissatisfied with what was available, and a business was born. That first collection consisted of jersey T shirts and knit leggings. It evolved into a line of intricately woven fox jackets, cashmere sweaters, wool and mohair dresses, and leather leggings for which women are willing to pay $1,700.
The Row might best be described as the Gap meets Jil Sander: basic, minimal, adult, and extremely expensive. A jersey T shirt: $290. A cashmere and mink sweater: $5,900. And for fall, while ?debt? and ?unemployment? are on the tip of everyone?s tongue, the Olsens have introduced more fur, more cashmere, raising their overall prices by as much as 25 percent.
Their customers can afford it. While most designers thrill to say their core shopper is a 25-year-old woman, The Row?s main customer is 35 to 45 years old. Instead of encouraging women to cling to their slacker years, the Olsens want them to luxuriate in their most productive ones. That point of view is rare. Most young designers create collections for their contemporaries?or some fairy-tale version of them. And even as designers grow older, they tend to shift their focus to women who are their junior. The Olsens seem to revel in the promise of maturity. Their work avoids high-society, leisure-class clichs. Instead, it evokes a professional, tailored, hail-a-cab-in-the-rain reality.
Instead of trying to leverage their fame, the Olsens hid it?most notably by not putting their name on the label. ?Initially, I wanted someone else to front the brand,? Mary-Kate says. ?We wanted someone else to rep it. But we couldn?t lie.?
In their showroom, which is in the offices of Dualstar, the Olsens do business around a banquet-size table decorated with a bouquet of white roses and lilies. Ashley tends to zero in on the technical aspects of the collection. Mary-Kate is more likely to highlight pure aesthetics. Both, however, are adamant about what they want the collection to be.
?We really want The Row to be an American luxury brand,? Ashley says. ?We believe in not just American by representation but American by make.?
To that end, the Olsens traveled to Washington last year, where they lobbied the East Wing on the importance of the garment center: fashion provides New York with 28 percent of its manufacturing jobs. It puts $10 billion annually into New York?s economy.
Who knows? the next time the first lady wears a dress by an American brand, she might also make a point of saying it was made in America. In the meantime, the Olsens apparently have already won Mrs. Obama?s respect in a very public way. She wore their pleated skirt when she appeared in April on The View.
[From Newsweek]
I don?t think I realized the American clothing manufacturing statistics were so harsh. Yikes. Give the Olsens an award, damn it! They?re bringing back American manufacturing, one $6000 t-shirt at a time! (Double yikes.)
By the way, while I think Mary-Kate was talking about taking themselves out of the equation as far as business, being the corporate face of the brand, I also think they would be wise to not be the FASHION face of the brand. Because while I think The Row is impeccably made, their clothes always look like hell on them.
Photos courtesy of WENN. Newsweek cover courtesy of CoverAwards.
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She?s always on the go, and earlier today (April 26) Ashley Olsen was spotted out and about in New York City.
The actress/designer looked snazzy in a neutral tone outfit teamed with a light blue Chanel handbag and pearl jewelry.
Yesterday, Ms. Olsen attended a business meeting in Manhattan after returning from a quick trip to Paris, France with her sister Mary Kate.
In career news, Ashley and Mary Kate will be releasing a brand new line of eyewear and frames for glasses in June.
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| | Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Were at 'The Union' Premiere | | Added 13 years ago | Source: The Blemish |
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Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen showed so much promise before they turned 18. Now they scare me and I’m genuinely baffled by how they have a multi-million dollar fashion empire. Girls want to dress like this? They look like a couple of old, rich, eccentric white women. I’m half expecting them to offer me some tea from their ivory carved teapot.
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| | It's My Bag, Baby | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Yeeeah |
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The last time I saw someone dressed like this, she was sitting on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, covered by pigeons and saying, “Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.”
Crazy bird ladies Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen at the premiere of “The Union”:
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| | Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen at 'The Union' premiere: corpsey or cute' | | Added 13 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Last night, some A, B and C-list stars came out for the premiere of The Union, a documentary about the making of Elton John?s new album, which was a collaboration with T. Bone Burnett. The film was directed by Cameron Crowe and it totally sounds interesting. But don?t listen to me, I get stuck on PBS documentaries about origami, and I end up watching the whole damn thing (and enjoying them immensely)! Anyway, the red carpet for the premiere. Probably the biggest ?A-listers? at the event were Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, dressed up as always as corpse twins. Is the ?corpsey? part understood? Probably. But my goodness, don?t they look like ten kinds of hell? Here?s a question: are those orange pants every going to be the answer to any kind of fashion dilemma? Seriously?
Also at the premiere: A Fassbender-less Zoe Kravitz. She?s looking a lot cuter than the last time I saw her (the Jane Eyre premiere). Still, I kind of want to shake her and yell ?Where is my Beloved Fassdong?!?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM?!?? But yeah, she?s cute. I?m not even going to make fun of her bangs (trauma).
Photos courtesy of Fame.
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| | Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen: Tribeca Opening Night! | | Added 13 years ago | Source: Celebrity Gossip |
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They?re always up for a snazzy affair, and last night (April 20) Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were spotted at the premiere of ?The Union? in New York City.
The ?Full House? babes showed up at the World Financial Center dressed to impress as they posed on the red carpet.
?The Union? is a Cameron Crowe documentary about the collaboration between Elton John and Leon Russell.
Last week, Mary Kate and Ashley hit up the Women in Need?s Commit to WIN dinner. These girls never seem to sleep!
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