Industry Veterans. The Row SS26

The Row is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year – meaning that Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen are true industry veterans. And their brand is like wine – it does get better with age.

Spring-summer 2026 collection, photographed by Mark Kean (have you noticed the sudden Kean-ification of ad campaigns and editorials? He’s certainly got something of early Steven Meisel), is a fine study of what the Olsens were always interested in the first place: the basics. Don’t forget that The Row’s primary idea – and promise – was to create the most perfect t-shirt. There were a couple this season, as perfect as the ikebanas documented in the lookbook.

Other than crisp cotton shirting, lived-in tailoring, and startlingly monastic black evening dresses that could play a role in an Ingmar Bergman film, there was that one, chic accessory that was responsible for all the inventive styling: a bejeweled, rectangular brooch. Of course, it’s straight out of Miuccia Prada’s sciura playbook (the Olsens are known for referring – sometimes borderline imitating – designers like Martin Margiela or Yohji Yamamoto). A brooch can elevate any dress, fasten a cardigan like a scarf around your neck, or just be, on a jacket’s lapel. Now, since the Olsens have made their stance on this little tiny accessory, expect a lot of mini-essays about the art of wearing a brooch from Substack girls.

The designers, fully based in Paris for a couple of seasons now, know how to keep their loyal clients – and online admirers – in chokehold, in the most noiseless, elegant and sensual of ways.