Dear Gossips,
It bothered me all night thinking about Blake Lively’s Preserve, which is shutting down next week, as revealed exclusively to VOGUE yesterday. Maria wrote about it here. Yes, as Maria noted, I do appreciate that Blake took it face first, that she didn’t let it die quietly, and decided to go full frontal with the closure. As you know, Blake already has plans for a new enterprise and she says she’ll take her time with it and only launch when ready, promising that the next venture is the one she’d always intended to offer us from the beginning. And she predicted what the reaction would be to the announcement, this one and the upcoming one, whenever it makes its debut:
[The news will] blow up and I’ll look like a jerk and everyone will be really horrible. And then the new news will come out and I’ll look like a hero and everyone will be really nice, and then the new site will come out and half will be nice and half will be mean again. I mean, champagne problems—thank God these are the things I get to complain about.”
There. That’s what I’ve been bumping up against. Those “champagne problems”. Blake’s champagne problem is that she tried to sell us something we didn’t need and when it didn’t work out, she’s found another chance to do it all over again, this time in a way that she thinks will deliver, with people willing to invest in her, believe in her, and back her because she’s famous and pretty and well-dressed and connected. But how many businesswomen are afforded second chances? How many female entrepreneurs can say that when they stumble, there are already 8 sets of hands outstretched, waiting to pull them up and open more doors for them? How many lifestyle bloggers can announce their imminent closure with a full feature at Vogue.com that also serves as an endorsement for their new business? Even the URL on the Vogue.com link is titled “blake-lively-preserve-new-project”. So it all comes back to our favourite word of the year: Privilege. Hers has certainly been preserved.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
