Entertainment

Blake Lively's Preserve Vs. Goop

by Alanna Bennett

I gotta be honest, I am still entirely baffled by the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow decided to name her shiny wealthy pretty people lifestyle site Goop. Goop, of all things, really? Was moist taken. But I digress, because now Goop's got more company: Blake Lively's Preserve has launched. So how does it stack up? How goopy is it, and how many cleanses and $200 capris will the world get out of this?

The former Serena Van Der Woodsen has spent the past two years of her life building Preserve. Vogue's Jonathan Van Meter really described Lively's alleged intentions best:

Much like the woman who founded it, Preserve is a fundamentally curious and free-spirited enterprise. ... the site will seek out and celebrate people all over America who are making things — food, clothes, pillows, dishes, dining-room tables — with their hands.[...] Lively is hoping to tap into her generation’s obsession with all things small-batch: the perfectly imperfect handcrafted, the exquisitely bespoke, the deliciously artisanal. She is, in essence, using all the modern-day digital tricks of the trade to shine a light on—to preserve—all those finer, simpler things in American life that are in danger of getting touch-screened into extinction, trampled on by the medium itself. It will be a neat trick if she can pull it off.

So does she? That might be soon to tell — it's not wise to write a website off on its first day.

But let's explore Preserve together. Alongside Goop.We are greeted to both with pleas for subscriptions:

Goop's touting some news from the Hamptons:

While Preserve's going for elsewhere in the country:

And they've both got opinions on cleanliness, health, and wellness:

But whereas Goop seems to traffic in the WASPiest of milieus — all wealthy Manhattanite...

Preserve seems to live more in a Brooklyn-type place artisans and all:

The difference seems to be macrobiotic lobster versus, like, drinking kombucha out of mason jars. They're not worlds entirely divorced from each other — in fact, they'll probably share an audience — but it might just be fascinating to see how this new one shakes out.

Images: Goop; Preserve