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If you want a $249 24-karat gold vibrator ring, Gwyneth Paltrow is your girl.
If you truly need a $3,900 FireLight infrared sauna, or Kim Kardashian’s favorite Lyma Laser—– a steal at $2,695 — or simply must have a $28,495 Rolex, GP’s got you.
It’s all available on the hotly-anticipated holiday list from Goop, the company that Paltrow set up at her kitchen table back in 2008.
The company took her from Oscar winner to being one of the “first movers” in the e-commerce space, in business parlance.
Now, however, amid recent layoffs at the lifestyle brand, is the gilt off Gwyneth and, indeed, its best-smelling “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle?
Just after Labor Day, about 40 employees were let go at Goop, as first reported by the fashion business bible Women’s Wear Daily.
Among the departed was chief marketing officer Lauren Johnston, a former Google marketing executive who’d been hired only eight months before.
Adding to this, Puck revealed this summer that Goop’s affordable beauty and wellness line, Good.clean.goop, was in the “bottom 15” at Target.
“There will always be a generation of women for whom Gwyneth feels like a kooky old friend or a goddess guru whose every piece of advice they follow,” Bethan Holt, fashion director at the Telegraph, told Page Six. “But that doesn’t necessarily follow through as major business success any longer, even if Goop has long been a byword for the modern celebrity lifestyle empire.”
Still, Holt said, “Gwyneth herself is bigger than Goop … it’s been a brilliant vehicle for her to re-brand herself beyond acting, but arguably she doesn’t actually need it any longer.”
(Despite this, Page Six is told that Paltrow is often in the office and her daughter Apple, 20, has been an intern.)
A well-placed fashion branding expert added: “It’s important to note that Gwyneth was the first ‘mover’ in this e-commerce space, with her newsletter and her weird products that were really based on her personality, but I’m not sure what the next iteration for Gwyneth and Goop is. What she does is not that unique anymore.
Part of the problem, the branding expert said, is that “People have copied her and it’s almost impossible to retain that market share — no-one can at this point. Consumer habits have changed.
“Gwyneth stayed relevant to her customer, but now she faces the question: Does she age with her customer, or does she try to skew younger?”
Her executives, too, are figuring out whether it’s time to move on to the potential next big thing.
In June 2023, Shaun Kearney left his post as chief design and merchandising officer at Goop to join Harry Styles’ lifestyle brand, Pleasing.
A seasoned fashion writer who has covered Goop believes that there’s so much competition now among celebrity-led companies that some of them are doomed to sink.
“We’re in a cost of living crisis and people don’t have the money to spend on frivolous and cutesy stuff,” the writer said. “Obviously, it’s still Goop and it’s still Gwyneth, but it’s not the cash cow it used to be. I just think it’s lost its pizzazz online and lost its light.
“It needs to work out as a brand what it stands for. It needs to recalibrate.”
Paltrow, 52, who has an estimated $200 million fortune, is still inextricably linked with her brand.
When she stood trial for allegedly recklessly skiing into a retired optometrist last March (and found not liable), Paltrow turned the courtroom into a showcase for Goop’s quiet luxury.
She flaunted items from G.Label, her clothing range, including a sold-out $595 cardigan, as well as a $25,115 pendant from Foundrae and Caddis reading glasses, all available on the Goop website. (Naturally, the trial has now been turned into a musical).
In 2018, Paltrow’s partnership with Condé Nast ended after just two issues of Goop Magazine, when the publisher wanted to fact-check its articles.
Paltrow wanted to publish interviews with non-traditional healers and practitioners, as she did on her site, telling the New York Times, “We’re never making statements.” Elise Loehnen, Goop’s former head of content, added that Goop was “just asking questions.”
Loehnen went on to quit in 2020, then posted online revelations about the “distorted” and “punishing” relationship she developed to her body as a result of the “toxic” cleanse culture celebrated by wellness brands like Goop.
In its near 17-year history, Goop has often come under fire for promoting unorthodox advice.
The site infamously published an article about a procedure called the “Mugworth V-Steam,” which promoted steaming your vagina, claiming, “It is an energetic release — not just a steam douche — that balances female hormone levels.”
But the process was widely criticized by gynecologists, who argued it could not only upset the natural pH balance of the vagina but also lead to dangerous burns.
The site, which had originally extolled “If you’re in LA, you have to do it,” later changed that language to “you just might have to try it.”
Paltrow last year sparked claims she was promoting disordered eating by boasting about her diet of intermittent fasting, bone-broth lunches and paleo dinners.
She claimed the regimen was based on “my medical results and extensive testing I’ve done over time” then credited her doctor Will Cole with creating the diet. As The Post revealed, Cole was not a medical doctor but a “functional medicine practitioner” who advocates coffee enemas and cuddling.
Paltrow, however, has remained someone to follow.
“Goop set the blueprint for newsletters,” said the fashion writer, pointing out how the actress even used Goop to announce her “conscious uncoupling” from ex-husband Chris Martin in 2014.
“She started this whole thing for celebrity brands. Now you have everyone from Kourtney Kardashian and Poosh to Dua Lipa and Service 95, her newsletter for a younger, cooler audience.”
Goop now has three prime revenue streams, including Goop Beauty, the cosmetics brand, and G. Label, the clothing line. There’s also Goop Kitchen, a food delivery and takeout business in the LA area that recently raised $15.5 million (at a $90 million valuation) to fuel expansion from Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former CEO of Uber, who now runs CloudKitchens, Diego Berdakin (CloudKitchens Founder) and Stanley Tang (DoorDash Co-Founder), with participation from existing goop investor Greycroft.
Revenue for Goop Beauty was up close to 42% in 2023, according to a company spokesperson, and up 20% so far this year, while revenue for G. Label is up 45% year over year.
As Puck pointed out, the numbers are impossible to confirm without actual sales figures.
This week, Goop sources told Page Six the company was using the layoffs to restructure its organization and focus on the three verticals.
Goop Kitchen will expand, and we’re told there are no plans to sell the company, which has been valued in reports at as much as a billion dollars.
As for good. clean. goop, the beauty line will continue to be sold in Target and on Amazon, where, as Puck reported that in 2023, the range did just over $1,000,000 in sales. (By contrast, Glossier’s successful fragrance launch in October generated $1 million in sales in its stores and online in one day.)
One Goop source said the brand is still hyper-aware of its customer base: high-income women in their late 30s and up who want to shop in the luxury space.
The Goop source added, “Paltrow remains committed to “pushing boundaries.”
After several years away from Hollywood, Paltrow — who wed producer Brad Falchuk in 2018 —will star alongside Timothée Chalamet in the upcoming movie, “Marty Supreme.”
She told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” this week that her mom groups were “on fire” after photos surfaced of her kissing Chalamet, adding that daughter Apple, now a student at Vanderbilt, told her to go for the project because of the young star.
(Meanwhile, her and Martin’s son, Moses, is now 18 and studying at Brown University and has been performing in NYC with his band, Dancer.)
“I actually think seeing Gwyneth back on the big screen will bring people back to Goop,” said the fashion writer, “She’s always going to be a vibe.”
The branding expert added: “Gwyneth is Gwyneth … She will always succeed because she’s authentic — even if you don’t like her.”
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