Call it summertime sadness, but lately, I feel like I’ve been on autopilot, like an aircraft wafting amid a sea of raincloud, trying to find its way out.
My current Spotify rotation reflects this; there’s the perennially emo energy of Addison Rae’s Headphones On, there’s the post-punk paean of Placebo’s Every You Every Me, and there’s What Was That, summer’s hottest sad girl anthem.
This state of mind has manifested itself in many ways in my wardrobe. Like Madame Lorde’s rabidly brazen strut across lower Manhattan in the What Was That MV, the boring white button-down has quickly become the sartorial north star of my own wardrobe.
And why not? After all, you can take it from the boardroom to the beach. Sharon Stone famously wore hers to the 1998 Oscars. In a generation frustrated by attention and surveillance, the white shirt democratically bridges the aesthetics of Tumblr and TikTok. Like the Ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic, you put it on and are invisible and anonymous.
Vogue’s December 2024 digital cover, titled “Fashion Gets Real: Creativity for Everyone” – controversially achromatic by design – similarly featured a host of some of the hottest faces of our time, Vittoria Ceretti, Amelia Gray, and Anok Yai, in practically identical blue jeans and white button-downs from brands high and low, from Ralph Lauren and Hodakova to Gap and COS.
“Is creativity in the room with us?” read one of the comments, yet the message rang true—we live in an era when anonymity is a prized commodity.
And who has cracked the code to anonymity better than the Olsen twins?
Sworn to Secrecy
Days before The Row’s FW24 collection walked in Paris last year, Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times, posted the invite on X: “The Row looks forward to having you at the Winter 2024 Collection Presentation on Wednesday, February 28th at 12pm. We kindly ask that you refrain from capturing or sharing any content during your experience.” Friedman simply wrote in response, “Oh. Ok.”
But it wasn’t all that simple for The Row’s staff, who, in addition to prepping for the usual runway presentation, now also had to execute a dedicated photoshoot with all the new looks for Vogue. Yet, the fruit of their labor paid off – a tightly controlled curation of images… and a phoneless fashion show, not a solitary shaky front (or back) row Instagram clip in sight!
It was the polar opposite to Chanel’s 2020/21 Metiers d’Art collection staged in the December of 2020, at Château de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley, to a lone audience of actor and ambassador Kristen Stewart, and streamed over 12 million times via the brand’s official Instagram!
And it was just the kind of thing we’ve come to expect of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The Washington Post’s Rachel Tashjian came out of the show, “Chewing my madeleine and pondering my phoneless experience, I was transported back to the time, long before this era, when fashion was a subculture that demanded connoisseurship.”
In fact, the idea of a phoneless fashion show harked back to The Row’s earliest days, its headline-making t-shirts going for well over $200, and its first advert on American Vogue a blank, all-white two-page spread with the label’s name scribbled at the bottom. If there was ever a brand sworn to complete secrecy, with customers equally invisible to the ordinary mortal, it was this.
Putting the Stealth in the Wealth
Yet, for all its desire to be discreet, The Row has become surprisingly mainstream. The Lyst Index describes it as a label that fills ‘the sartorial hole left by Phoebe Philo’s departure from’ old Céline.
And its Margaux, widely dubbed the “next Birkin”—with a price tag teetering between $4,290 and $7,000—was one of the platform’s most frequently sold-out accessories, with a 198% year-on-year increase, prompting social media rumors of a potential discontinuation.
Elsewhere, with funding from the Wertheimers and L’Oreal heiress, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the brand has reached “unicorn status” with a billion-dollar valuation. And Cate Blanchett’s tart character in Tár wears a coat from The Row – designer Bina Daigeler has practically blown the film’s entire wardrobe budget on the piece!
One might even say that Olsens practically invented quiet luxury with The Row – hackneyed as the term may be now. “Yes, the pieces are very pricey, but they provide what I call background wear,” says a 30-something tech founder and COO and regular shopper to the label from Toronto. “No one notices you’ve worn it 500 times. They just see you looking sharp and can quickly refocus on the words coming out of your mouth,” she adds.
Yet, like the stereotype of stealth wealth, The Row’s offerings have become somewhat hackneyed too, especially within the confines of internet culture. Its t-shirts, now priced at $550, remain a point of contention. But little has incited controversy as much as the brand’s egregious $690 flip-flops.
As this NYT piece covers the discourse, team flip-flop (Misty White Sidell and Jacob Gallagher) thinks that they “exemplify the wealth gap in a very tangible way” and “represent a certain lifestyle that people want. I could hear someone justifying the purchase by saying, ‘I feel like I’m in St. Barts.’”
On the other hand, Stella Bugbee retorts, “Havaianas are $30!”
Taking Back Control
You take a step back on those times when your mind is chaotic and thoughts incoherent, and your $690 slippers are splayed all over the internet.
It might be, as in the case of yours truly, devolving into a Joan Didion-esque sad girl Twitter uniform of simple knits, boring button-downs, and oversized sunglasses (to hide the tears, duh!) that takes the decision-making out of the outfit and makes the act getting ready less of a chore than it is.
Or in the case of The Row, it might be just sinking back into oblivion with a phoneless fashion show. Of course, anyone with money can land a Margaux (or that confounded flip-flop) on retail or resale.
And as the resale-verse becomes increasingly democratic, The Row can now be purchased through Walmart’s third-party resale platform and even at discount retailers, like T.J. Maxx.
But being important enough to warrant an invite to their show? A whole different ballgame, the ultimate stealth wealth experience (yes, I cringed, but nevertheless). In an era where attention is prized commodity, The Row deals in anonymity. “I remember how fun it was when you were at an event, and you ran into someone who also had The Row on,” reminisces Mason Henry Howell, handbag historian and The Row collector.
It’s that cult-like following (not to mention, among clients who reportedly “seem to experience no price sensitivity at all”) that The Row is now trying to incite, all over again. Sure, the pieces may not be all that different (at least, outwardly).
And if that Vogue cover is any indication, homogeneity is an epidemic among the industry’s highest echelons. Eccentricity even amongst the rich is dwindling,” writes the Substack Thoughtful Threads. We have whole generations of people who are deeply informed by groupthink.”
But like being invited to its show and not posting about it, there’s a silence in The Row’s refusal to stand out that speaks louder than words. It’s seeking validation in your own self. And God knows we need it now more than ever.
They are just trying to prevent sleazy fast fashion companies like Shein and Zara from copying their ideas relentlessly. Smart move!
This is such a well written piece!