Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen experimented with style

Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen attend the "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2015 in New York City. PICTURE: Mike Coppola / AFP

Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen attend the "China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2015 in New York City. PICTURE: Mike Coppola / AFP

Published Mar 10, 2017

Share

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen used to cut adult clothing down to their size as young girls.

The 30 year old actresses turned fashion designers have always experimented with their clothes and Mary-Kate has revealed they used to design their own outfits growing up.

Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen attend WSJ. Magazine's "Innovator Of The Year" Awards at MOMA on October 18, 2012 in New York City. PICTURE: Cindy Ord / AFP

She shared: "When we were younger, being in the public eye was almost part of our role and responsibility - to set the trends at that time or be ahead of fashion. "We would take adult clothing and cut it down to our size, change the proportions. I think from a young age we understood fit in a very different way because we're so petite."

READ: Look out! Stella McCartney is bringing back the pointy bra

And Mary-Kate enjoys "switching things up" from time to time as that is the "beauty of clothes". She added: "We just want to help women feel however they want to feel. Every once in a while, we want to change our perfume or our haircut; we want to wear heels or flats. We just like to switch it up. That's the beauty of clothes."

Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen attend the "Charles James: Beyond Fashion" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2014 in New York City. PICTURE: Larry Busacca / AFP

The pair have their own womenswear range called Elizabeth and James amongst other clothing lines too and call it the "new luxury". Mary-Kate told Net-a-Porter's The Edit magazine: "We like to say that Elizabeth and James is the new luxury. It's the idea that you can still have fashion, great fabrics and great fits at a lower price point ...

READ: Get the lingerie basics right

"We talk about the mother and the daughter, the comfortable and sexy, masculine and feminine. It's a balance of both." Meanwhile, the designing duo previously admitted the whole process has become "more mathematical" in recent years. Mary-Kate said: "It's important to control the image of your brand, something we have known since we were very young. It's a lot more work but we're up for it.

Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen attend the "Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2016 in New York City. PICTURE: Dimitrios Kambouris / AFP 

"Design has become really mathematical in a way, and for us, there's a freedom that comes from knowing exactly where we want to go from the start."

Related Topics: