A pocket tee, a long sleeved tee, and a pair of slouchy utilitarian pants: It’s a uniform beloved of slackers, ravers, construction workers, surfers, normcorers (remember them?!), at one point in my life, me, and now, apparently, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The two opening looks of their The Row presentation held in a series of airy rooms in a Paris hôtel particulier riffed on this holy trinity of nonchalant and unaffected style. Of course, hello, this is The Row: The fabrications might have been treated to look rumpled and crumpled, but you can bet your bottom thousand dollars everything was rendered in the most luxurious materials.
Worn with the nifty black ballet slippers that were a recurring feature of this show, the trio was as soft as anything, the vibe, the look, the attitude as casual as a shrug, and looked as comfortable as anything. If I had a dime for every time someone has talked about quiet luxury these past god knows how many months—years!—and how The Row is invoked as the poster label of it, I could afford to walk into the label’s gorgeous new Paris store and walk out with whatever I wanted. It’s certainly true Mary-Kate and Ashley’s deeply considered and personal approach to fashion has been extremely influential, and for good reason: It connects with so many in a way that fashion isn’t always able to do.
But as some of the shows from their imitators—uh, sorry, flatterers —have demonstrated, just doing ‘good’ taste minimalistic clothes.
