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Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the child actresses-turned designers, have hired Goldman Sachs to find an investor willing to finance the growth of their high-end fashion brand The Row, industry sources told Miss Tweed.

The twin sisters rose to fame in the 1980s with the popular TV sitcom Full House in which they started playing when they were toddlers. Like Drew Barrymore who featured in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and Shirley Temple who was a hugely popular child actress in the 1930s, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were for many years the ultimate children sweethearts of America’s entertainment industry. They got into fashion at a young age and founded The Row in 2006 when they were 20. When they won the Womenswear Designer of the Year award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 2012, the two sisters officially left show business to focus on their career in fashion.

The twins, now aged 37, have built The Row into a highly desirable brand, known for its timeless designs and top-quality materials. The New York-based label is said to be profitable and generate turnover of around $250 million, several industry sources say. Some private equity firms have already been looking at the company’s books. One of the parties potentially interested is Téthys, the secretive holding company of the Bettencourt-Meyers family, the largest shareholder of French cosmetics giant L’Oreal. The Row and Téthys did not reply to requests for comment. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

The Row – whose name comes from Savile Row, London’s chic tailoring strip – has become the go-to brand for the affluent and sophisticated fashion-conscious. Over the years, it has established itself as a credible American rival to Hermès in terms of market positioning, design and price point. One of its best-sellers is the no-logo Margaux bag selling for €6,340. Adopted by celebrities such as Kendall Jenner, it rivals Hermès’ Birkin in terms of cachet, some fashion experts say. The brand’s flat shoes costing $1,000 also sell well. Many of The Row’s bags and shoes are described as “sold out” on the brand’s website.

“The Row is the most desirable American brand, it’s at the top of the pile,” explains Euan Rellie, co-founder and managing partner of investment banking firm BDA Partners. “The term ‘quiet luxury’ applies to it in every way with the single gold chain as the identifier. The style is very minimalist with very high-end fabrics and an obsession with tailoring.” Now is a good time to sell a business, Rellie believes. “We are in an improving market. We’ve had a tough 18 months but now the sun is coming out even though interest rates have not come down yet.”

When The Row presented its collection during Paris Fashion Week in early March, viewers were asked to not take photos or videos, in contrast with every other brand that expects showgoers to advertise and publish photos and videos on their social media accounts. At The Row’s show, a notebook and pencil was provided on every seat to record thoughts and make sketches – like fashion critics, wholesale buyers and customers used to do before the digital age. The Row wished to make the point that luxury was also about living in the moment and being physically present at an event, fashion veterans said at the time. Photos of the show were published only a few days later – which never happens in a world in which images are instantly available and spread around the world in seconds thanks to smartphones.

The Olsen sisters are said to be very discreet. They rarely give interviews and try to stay below the celebrity radar as much as possible. Four years ago, Mary-Kate went through a bruising divorce from Olivier Sarkozy, the half-brother of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The news was covered by many celebrity and fashion magazines who offered their readers various explanations about why the couple split up.

The sisters may want to stay private but The Row has courted controversy on many accounts in the past. It has been accused by employees of hiring and promoting mainly white managers. Some of its staff have taken legal action on that point. The twins also ignore pressure from powerful animal rights associations like Peta, publicly wearing fur whenever they like. “The Olsen sisters break all the rules,” Rellie said.

In 2017, the Olsens had to pay $140,000 to a class action of 185 interns who complained about not being paid and working in harsh conditions.

During the pandemic, The Row was criticized for the brutal way in which it sacked around half of its staff. The job cut came on the heels of Barneys New York’s bankruptcy in 2019. Court filings from the bankruptcy revealed that Barneys owed The Row $3.7 million, making the brand the department store’s second-biggest creditor.

The two sisters have launched two other labels, Elizabeth and James and Olsenboye. They appear to be no longer active.

Industry sources say the Olsen sisters are keen to find an investment partner who will buy a minority stake and they would like to spend the funds on hiring talent and investing in new boutiques. The Row has only three stores, albeit in prestigious locations: Los Angeles’ Melrose Place, New York’s Upper East Side and London’s Carlos Place.

The Row has been trying to raise funds for more than a year now, industry sources say. It’s a rare asset but it has one major weakness: governance. The two sisters insist on controlling everything. That’s why they’ve been through several designers and CEOs in the past 15 years. “When they hire someone, they promise a post which the person eventually realizes he or she is actually not allowed to fulfill,” one former senior manager at The Row told Miss Tweed. “The sisters have amazing taste and they have created an amazing brand, but history shows that they don’t know how to manage people.”

Luckily, the two sisters get along very well. “They understand each other without speaking with one another,” the former manager said.

Today, the Olsen sisters run the company. Mary-Kate looks after design and Ashley acts as the CEO. The Row has been the training ground for many designers who now work for big brands such as Dior. Hermès’ current ready-to-wear creative director Nadège Vanhee Cybulski was The Row’s women’s design director before joining the French luxury brand in 2014.

“They’ve been running this company for a long time now,” said one financial source who is close to the Olsen sisters. “I think there is a weariness on the sister’s (Mary-Kate) part at this point. With all the retail turmoil, Saks’ credit situation, Matches bankruptcy and Net-a-Porter’s poor financial situation, I sense that they’re both just tired of the pressure of all the decisions they have to make, and the risks they have to take on inventory and production. It’s all a lot of pressure that doesn’t let up.”

It's not the first time The Row is opening up its shareholder capital. In 2013, the Olsen sisters sold a 20 percent stake to a group of private investors, who included billionaire Byron Trott, founder of the merchant bank BDT & Company. Last year, his firm merged with MSD, an investment company that manages funds on behalf of Dell founder Michael Dell and his family and friends. The new entity is called BDT & MSD. A source close to the bank confirmed that BDT & MSD was a shareholder in The Row as well as in Tory Burch, another fashion business that has been trying to find investors for some time, as Miss Tweed reported earlier this month.

Back in 2013, the deal with BDT & Company valued The Row at $100 million even though it was making around $9 million in revenue, one source with knowledge of the matter said. “Some people are ready to pay a lot of money to sit alongside celebrities at board meetings,” the source said. It is expected that Byron Trott and other investors will want to sell part or all of their stake – depending on the price – if and when a deal is agreed.

The Row is likely to attract more interest from private equity firms than from big luxury groups such as LVMH, Kering or Zegna Group, banking sources say. The Olsen sisters do not like being told what to do. Few luxury groups and investors will feel comfortable with that no matter how desirable The Row is as a brand.