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They focused specifically on the "It Girl" consumer because she is "more educated on the brands, owns more of them, talks about them more, and has stronger opinions on them."
"Our 2013 'Brands Rising' index included brands that It Girls gave high marks for but were still off the radar for the National Sample," they wrote. "In 2014, 75% of these brands had significant increases in National familiarity and scored high on affinity, supporting the idea that It Girls set the tone for others."
To find the top 50 brands, Goldman polled over 1,200 Teen Vogue 'It Girls' on approximately 350 brands.
The survey takes into account three metrics, each of which was given a score out of 100.
Two of the metrics were pretty standard: familiarity and affinity. Familiarity measured whether or not the respondent knew the brand, and affinity measured whether or not the respondent liked the brand.
The third metric was "word of mouth," which measured how much respondents discussed a brand relative to others. This metric is especially important today when young millennial women are increasingly discussing brands via social media like Instagram and Pinterest.
Goldman Sachs writes that "familiarity", "affinity" and "world of mouth" all directly impacted "ownership" of a given brand.