We Are Now A Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen Appreciation Blog

During a Q&A; session, a fan asked how they felt when people stared. It was amusing, considering the whole cruise was designed for the twins to be stared at constantly.

“We don’t really mind it because we’re used to it,” Mary-Kate said. “But I think it’s funny when people are standing right next to you and whispering, ‘Look, it’s the Olsen twins!’They think they’re whispering, but they’re, like, screaming it out.”

Chloe Schildhause writes about her experience aboard The SS Olsen Twins (not the real name of their cruise) (but wouldn’t it be so perfect if it was?)

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember this particular incarnation of the Olsen Twins’ personal branding: Mary-Kate and Ashley, under the billion-dollar umbrella of Dualstar, made books, movies, and personal appearances based on the fact that they were just like us. “It’s difficult to conceive of with each passing year, but the Olsens once staked their celebrity, and minted a fortune, on this kind of accessibility,” Schildhause says.

Today, the Olsens are — somewhat surprisingly — critically acclaimed fashion designers; I once heard a buyer speak about The Row, with that surprise in her voice, about how it is one of the few brands that women actually buy consistently and frequently, despite the high prices and stigma of celebrity-owned vanity fashion lines.

I don’t think people are surprised that they’ve grown into extremely smart women with extremely excellent taste. It’s more the surprise of seeing how that accessibility is still at work now that they’ve flipped, entirely, and become completely inaccessible and aloof. Once they couldn’t leave a Starbucks without having their outfits photographed; today they rarely appear in paparazzi shots. Once they built what is, it must be repeated, a billion-dollar empire, completely on the strength of convincing girls their own age that if they were to meet at the local mall, they would totally be friends. “The sisters, now 28,” continues Schildhause, “long ago traded in their next-door charm for the icy-cool mystique of critically acclaimed fashion designers.” And yet — now that they’ve dropped the “just like us” act and ascended to a status completely out of the world of any other 28-year-old (hi) their pull, I think, remains even stronger, distance and nostalgia being a particularly potent force.

What I mean to say is: you’re going to love reading this article about Chloe Schildhause actually going on one of those Olsen Twins cruises. I’ll leave you with this gem.

The foreign waiters giggled nervously as they served the twins.

“I saw you on that show when you were a baby!” one said, as he cradled his slender arms to illustrate.

“Oh yeah? Full House, yeah,” the twins politely nodded back.

“And that movie,” the waiter continued, “where you were both twins and you met each other at camp, but then decided to switch places. And one of you went to England. I love that movie!”

“Thank you,” they said.

When he walked away, Ashley turned to Mary-Kate.

“Was that our movie?” she asked.

“I don’t know . . . I don’t think so?” Mary-Kate said.