Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen used to sell tween clothing, accessories, videos, and all other trinket-y goods at places like Wal-Mart. But now they produce a line of "bohemian" women’s wear, Elizabeth and James, and another much more expensive brand called the Row.
They "have made the unusual and more difficult move of going in reverse, beginning in Wal-Mart and finding their way to Madison Avenue. The idea for the line began with Ashley’s wish to engineer the perfect T-shirt. It has since grown to a full wardrobe. The clothes are in some sense like the Olsens themselves, outwardly ethereal but fundamentally practical — skirts, jackets, sweaters, from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, that no urbane 40-year-old woman would look foolish or desperate wearing. The two initially hired a designer to produce the line, but now they design it themselves," according to Ginia Belafonte at the NYT.
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