Goopy or loopy, Paltrow knows how to build a $250m following
Hundreds of women lap up wellness therapies at the lifestyle brand’s first British health conference
It’s 9am on Saturday and a crowd of thirty or fortysomething women in designer athleisurewear is gathering. Fuelled up on plant-based food and lavender lattes, they’re not here for your typical fitness class. Instead, Hammersmith’s glittering new wellness hub, Re:centre, is gearing itself up for Britain’s inaugural Goop Health Summit. Over 250 guests are here to try out the latest wacky ideas of actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
Today is all about creating “a new version of yourself ”, a luminescent Paltrow (or “GP” to fans) tells the crowd during the first session of the day, her famous “fireside chat”.
Change is possible, she says. “We have gathered today doctors, healers, writers and leaders, to remind us that we already have everything we need inside of us to do this work.”
Paltrow has built a successful lifestyle empire, with a website, fashion and beauty lines and health supplements. But it’s her advocating of kooky wellness treatments that has racked up the most headlines. These are no more evident than at Paltrow’s London health summit – her seventh, and the first outside the US.
By all accounts we’re in for a treat. Previous summits have headlined with such oddball workshops as aura sessions, psychic medium group
readings and “self-acceptance therapy”. The event in London is showcasing some equally eyebrowraising ideas. From sound baths to “healing the whole person” sessions and A-list trainer Tracy Anderson’s scary-sounding “FundamenTAI workouts”, it doesn’t disappoint.
Anderson, Paltrow’s longtime personal trainer, is pint-size and with a body to die for. Although the class said “beginners welcome”, she takes no prisoners. Fifty of us strain our necks to see her from our mats and try to keep up as the music blares.
The best we can do is try to follow the self-declared Anderson superfans, who seem to know every move.
“I’ve been following GP since the beginning,” Natalia Haas, a furniture retail consultant, tells me. Haas has flown in from Switzerland for the summit. “I liked the way she gave food and travel tips in the early days. Then she got into health the same time as me and I feel we have a connection.”
It’s women like Haas who have helped turn Goop from a humble newsletter sent from Paltrow’s kitchen table 10 years ago into the $250million global lifestyle brand it is today. Paltrow’s switch to health was a savvy move, too. Last year, the Global Wellness Institute valued the wellness industry at $4.2trillion.
The London event has not been without controversy, though. When tickets first went on sale, a Twitter storm ensued over the price of the £4,500 VIP weekend passes. The tickets sold out.
Controversy seems to follow Goop. Last year, it settled a Californian lawsuit for $145,000, in part over editorial making unsubstantiated scientific claims about vaginal jade eggs.
Part of Paltrow’s appeal is that she is famed for rolling up her sleeves and getting involved. She recently told Graham Norton she’ll do “any weird cleanse going”, but has drawn the line at “drinking her own urine”.
If Goop likes to push boundaries, what about the $80 (£63) crystalinfused water bottles and $60 “sex dust” that feature on the site – are they serious, or more tongue-in-cheek?
The answer is probably a bit of both. It’s not a coincidence that goopy – the word her staff fondly use to describe some of the crazier things in the Goop offering – rhymes with “loopy”.
And my day gets goopier. I try some “far-infrared gemstone therapy”; heated mats with crystals embedded in them, which I’m told will “boost my seven chakras”. I dig deeper: “What are chakras?” The answer I get is “it’s like yoga, but like lying down”.
I try – and fail – to test my Goop knowledge by trying to answer questions placed in jars around the event: “When was the last time you spiralised?” “What’s your love language?” “What is oil pulling?” No clue, sorry, GP. I give reiki and sound healing a whirl. We sit on hard cushions and breathe in and out, a lot. The instructor tells us to look through our “third eye” and chant “I feel powerful” to ourselves. She makes a lovely sound on the rim of some bowls. I find out later this is a “sound bath”.
Unsurprisingly, I can’t find my third eye and fight the urge to sneeze.
Opening my eyes, I look around and see rows of captivated faces. My face, in contrast, looks slightly more cynical. I have to hand it to GP though, I am definitely in the minority.
In Goop Health Summit ends today; details at goop.com/ingoophealth
‘We already have everything we need inside of us to do this work [to change]’