If you’ve ever checked out Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s fashion line, The Row, and scoffed at the large price tags, which rival the rent in New York City, that’s probably because the brand is not actually targeting you. That is, unless you’re over 40.
In a recent sit down with the Wall Street Journal, the Olsens explained that older women are actually their target customers. She’s “probably 40s, 50s, it really could be any age. She’s—the women that I know are—sophisticated, very educated within the world of fashion,” Ashley explained. And she’s also probably the woman who’s already amassed her wealth from a very fruitful career.
The pair isn’t just pricing pieces according to what their target older customer can afford and serving the looks on the svelte bodies of sixteen year old models, either. They’ve committed to The Row’s brand identity, bringing the then 68-year-old actress Lauren Hutton to the 2012 CFDA Awards and casting veteran models for their pre-fall 2014 lookbook.
Older women are a generally undeserved MARKET in fashion. Regardless of who they wear or what they buy, brands are always courting a younger customer, and using even younger faces to push those pieces. So it’s refreshing to hear a fashion forward brand proudly targeting 40-50 somethings, especially one by 20 somethings.