Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, as you may know, are my favorite fashionistas in the whole world. I have been emulating their iconic style ever since I was 5 years old and first fell in love with Full House. The twins are featured in the April issue of Vogue and speak in depth about their clothing line The Row.

Vogue: How have they pulled any of this off without a formal design education?
“Fair question,” replies Ashley, “but Dualstar started when we were six. And we had a collection with Walmart at twelve, which was the upper tier of the tween market. It was before celebrity designers.” “And we were really designing it,” adds Mary-Kate. “It would be jeans, a bit bohemian, or with a little blazer. It was really fashion-forward.”

Vogue: Of their formative influences, Mary-Kate goes off into vivid detail about watching how women around them dressed.
“We had our observations about fashion changing, when it went from being so eighties to the slipdress and the dark lip. We’d see students coming back from college in grunge. And then Lori Loughlin [Full House] had all this great Donna Karan.”

Vogue: Escaping a life of being hounded in L.A. was also a major relief.
“The press here in New York respect you more,” Ashley notes. “It was the worst in Los Angeles when we got our license. They would follow us. They knew where we lived. And you don’t know who these people are. People just out of jail.” Being young and stalked has taken its toll. “We are paranoid,” Mary-Kate states, glancing out the window. But isn’t that not paranoia, because what you’re imagining is what’s happening? “Well,” she responds, “we have no way to tell the difference.”

