I have just come across GOOP. Yeah, I know. I'm always late. But now I've found it I can't help commenting on it. The beauty of its design, the simplicity of presentation, the pureness of its 'philosophy'. It's enough to make me vomit. But not this time.
I'm normally the first person to shoot down a mother superior who flaunts not only her coping abilities, but the 'extras' free of charge. Extras being karmic coolness, enthusiasm and organisation skills. But there's something about Gwyneth I like. And although it's tagline - 'nourish the inner aspect' - sounds a little bit like a Zen readymeal, I do like her site.
For one, there are no sweeping pinks or Farrow & Ball wallpapers or swatches of the same shade sweetly echoing through its pages; there are no overly apple-pied pictures of children; there are no blow-by-blow accounts of the pains of celebrity motherhood... Gwyneth is just giving an insight into what she likes. If you're going to call that self-centred then you're going to have to stop looking at blogs, because unless a blog is discussing tax returns or grouting, chances are it's a big trip.
But back to beautifully composed Gwyneth and her beautifully composed site, Goop.
This quote featured on www.blog.macleans.ca
"Why the notoriously private 36-year-old is trying to reinvent herself as a 21st-century Mrs. Beeton is a mystery. For all of its breezy openness, Goop is shrouded in secrecy. The number of subscribers is unknown. When a reporter from the New York Observer went to the address listed on the website, there was no Goop office and a security guard couldn’t find any record of it on the computer. Paltrow’s spokesman, Stephen Huvane, didn’t respond to Maclean’s phone calls or emails. The most logical explanation for Goop is that Paltrow figured she could make some serious money by capitalizing on her celebrity—and style-setting image. On the TV program Popular, which aired nearly a decade ago, high school girls talked about wanting to be “like Gwyneth.” Maybe, she figured, the same demographic, now mothers, still do."
Who cares? If Gwyneth is making money from a online extension of her sellable personality, it's none of our business. Spin-offs happen all the time: Friends made Joey, Oprah made a brand as did the Beckhams, and Nigella the journalist found she could make more money if she put down her pen and picked up a dollop of marscapone on her finger - all of this, not to provide us with added-value entertainment, you know. A simple website that looks a simple pleasures aint' so bad.
What's more, Goop is cute. It's cuter that I could ever be. I don't care what I wear and if I make something with the kids it's invariably an egg box crocodile, but I like to think maybe, one day, when I get more sleep, when I lose some weight, when I have redeveloped my larger-than-lifeness, I'll be enviably in control and enigmatic again. I'll be Goop.
And anyway, celebrity role models were never supposed to be imitated were they, just leered at from gutter level; and that's something reflex celebrity-panners need to digest.
For once, I won't take bitterness. I'll order Goop of the day.
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