Gwyneth Paltrow and Jay-Z are blazing a trail as celebrity lifestyle gurus for the internet age. Can they build brands that will outlive their showbiz careers?
At the end of last year, Gwyneth Paltrow received a plaintive e-mail. It was from a reader of Goop.com, the lifestyle portal the Hollywood actress created in 2008 to dispense advice under the tagline “nourish the inner aspect”. How, asked the reader, can one find “a good balance between having a career and being a mom?” It was a topic close to the hearts of many of Goop’s 150,000 (largely female) subscribers, as well as to Paltrow.
In response, she recorded a “manic” day in her own life as a “working mom” of children, Apple, now aged seven, and Moses, five: “Got home and had a fitting with super stylist Elizabeth Saltzman for the upcoming Nashville trip (what to wear, what to wear?) from 1-2,” she wrote. “This is my fourth out of five fittings for this trip. We tried on a myriad of dresses and outfits, and I had b.o. [sic] by the end of it from wrestling with all of those dresses.”