Fashion

Mary-Kate & Ashley's Very Best Matching Outfits

by Tori Telfer

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen shocked the world Monday night (NOT) by wearing almost-matching coat dresses to the 2014 Met Gala. While Mary-Kate's was pinstriped and Ashley's was lightly checkered, they were definitely worthy of inclusion in the Olsen Twin Matchy-Matchy Hall of Fame. Both gowns were long, dark, intriguingly demure, weirdly old-fashioned, and voluminous enough to hide an extra Olsen inside each.

It's good to see the girls coordinating outfits again. After all, that's one of the things I've always loved about them — from Full House to Passport to Paris to So Little Time to their stints at NYU to their hobo phase to The Row, Mary Kate and Ashley have never been too far apart, physically or sartorially. Whether it's their identically waved blonde hair, seemingly endless collection of matching chokers, or penchant for cocoon coats and Starbucks to-go cups, I can't get enough of their twin fashion. So you'll forgive me for rounding up some of our favorite coordinated looks from Olsen wardrobes past.

The girls have certainly grown up since their days of perpetually wearing Halloween-style costumes, they haven't lost that certain flair for dressing the-same-but-different. Here are 24 of their most memorable matching moments. If there's such a thing as too much matching MK&A, I don't think we've reached that saturation point quite yet.

1. Tiny bows.

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Paired with the smallest of Grandma dresses.

2. Holiday chic.

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Look at those Shirley Temple curls! If this isn’t the most shamelessly cute setting of all time, I don’t know what is.

3. Those overalls!

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The Olsen twins were basically the original kitten YouTube videos. Looking at this picture will make a bad day so much better.

4. Serious cowgirls.

When the twins dress for a theme, they really commit.

5. Pirates.

Publicists of the ’90s liked to put the twins in strangely masculine getups like this one for promo shots. I’d say it was a radical attempt to blur gender lines, but you know they just did it because the girls looked so darn cute.

6. Witchy women

Anyone who’s ever read a fairy tale knows that you never mess with a set of twins. They have powers.

7. Reinterpreting plaid.

That one time Mary-Kate and Ashley toned down the grunge movement with pigtails.

8. Endless accessorizing.

All those chokers and hairpieces almost completely distract from the fact that (gasp!) they’re not wearing the exact same tank top.

9. Tropical headbands.

Note the pieces of hair pulled out oh-so-carefully to frame the face.

10. Leather jackets.

The better for co-pouting in.

11. Sweater sets.

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A recurring theme of the Olsen oeuvre: same silhouette, different colors.

12. Significant hair differences.

The “free-spirited” one (usually Mary-Kate) always got the waves.

13. Always with the sunglasses.

Twins that don’t care together, stay together.

14. Those pants.

Bucket hats, chunky-heeled boots, and patterned bellbottoms: could this outfit be any more representative of what every girl wanted in 2001?

15. Halters and slacks.

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It’s all so cute until you remember that creepy website that counted down the days until the girls turned 18. No wonder they opt for black oversized everything these days.

16. Chokerville.

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Now we enter the era of flipped bobs, center parts, chokers for days, and basically identical wardrobes.

17. Bathing beauties.

Even in after-shower wear, the twins manage to nail that same-but-different vibe they’ve worked on so hard over the years.

18. Tourist gear.

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In New York Minute, Mary-Kate and Ashley play twins with such different personalities that they wouldn’t have been caught dead in the same outfit — until various city hijinx ruin their clothes and force them to style up cheap NYC tourist gear, looking, of course, fabulous.

19. Front row.

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This picture is Modern Day Olsen in a nutshell: blonde, barely tousled hair; inscrutable sunglasses, and black, black, black.

20. Vogueing.

Once they covered Vogue Best Dressed in matching eroticized lace masks.

21. Back to black.

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After spending a day researching the outfits they were forced to wear in their youth, I get it.

22. All black.

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Yes, those are different outfits from #27.

23. Still totally black.

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All black everything: this is the fashion rule that has defined Mary-Kate and Ashley’s later years.

24. Met Ball, 2014.

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As usual, they stood out in a sea of “sexy” dresses and yet manage to look almost interchangeable. I sense a switcheroo plot coming!

Images: Dualstar; Vogue