Well I never

Well I never thought I'd live to see the day I heard myself say something in favour of the Olsen twins but just goes to show you can never tell what life has in store ha ha because here I am, all faculties intact, praising them. Not for their personal style, no it will take a bit more convincing to change my mind on that one, but for their design abilities. I only recently discovered they had a clothing line and upon further investigation their Resort 2011 collection has me seriously taken aback.


I've never taken to the glitzy girly wirly Mary Kate and Ashley duo and the empire they've built for themselves as A) I wasn't ever a girly girl and B) the idea of people who turn their life into some sort of marketable commodity makes me sad. I mean I'll be fair and give credit where credit's due and admit they've done an exceptional job of profiting from every tweeny teeny bopper kid who watches daytime tv, but thinking of how much of their own childhood was sacraficed in the process just doesn't sit well with me. Anyway, that's somewhat irrelevant here because The Row, their clothing line launched in 2007 goes to show how a child star can mature and positively build on this process.

The line, named after the bespoke tailoring of London's Saville Row, is seemingly much more about who the girls are becoming as adults than who they were in their younger years. It's not often I'll be in favour of celebrities crossing artistic domains as I don't think they ever succeed as well in one as they did in the other and only manage to get anywhere by riding on their already created name without really meriting it. However, this is one of those times I'm making an exception. The designs are good; really good. I'm surprised because it's so unexpected and so far from what I would have imagined what they would be capable of producing. Not to point the finger, but they haven't done what the likes of Kate Moss or Victoria Beckham did and just recreate imitations of items from their own personal wardrobes. Their designs are constructively engineered and experiment with proportion and silhouette. They're actually creating modern, tailored fashion and I love the simplicity of this Resort collection. I think the minimalist designs with their monotone colour palette and austere forms are attractive and intruiging. And, furthermore the Olsen name doesn't appear anywhere on the label. They are trying to promote the line independent of their present standing fame and promote an understated yet sophisticated fashion line. See The Row here.