Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, whom most people know as the diminutive former child stars of Full House and an endless stream of straight-to-video tween movies, are inspecting a rolling rack of crisp white cotton shirts and another one lined with black stretch-leather leggings seemingly sized for miniature gazelles. The sisters and the clothes are crowded onto an exceedingly unglamorous factory floor in New York’s garment center. The L-shaped workspace, brightly lit with fluorescent lights, smells vaguely of steam irons and fried rice.
Their holding company, Dualstar Entertainment Group, was created with their then-manager, Robert Thorne, when they were about 6 years old as a vehicle for selling Olsen-branded merchandise and projects. By age 10, they had a line of clothing in Walmart; eventually they branched out with a contemporary line called Elizabeth & James, named after their siblings. At 18, they took over Dualstar, buying out Thorne. “Thank God our parents wanted us to be involved,” Ashley says. “Running a fashion company, it’s just as important to understand numbers as it is to have a design point of view,” Mary-Kate says. The company now has annual sales of $1 billion, according to Forbes.
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