The Scoop on Goop’s Amagansett Pop-Up

by Ashley Baker

Gwyneth Paltrow is not exactly a stranger to Amagansett, and now her lifestyle brand is popping up on Main Street with Goop MRKT, a style emporium that aims to take care of all your East End essentials. Blair Lawson, Goop’s head merchant, gives us the goods.

What’s the concept for the store?
The idea was to create a general store that has been reimagined as Goop’s summer residence. It’s located in a 100-year-old cottage at 145 Main Street, and we worked with Charles & Co. design studios to create the experience. It will have a vegetable garden in the back, and a product assortment across all of our categories—fashion, beauty, home, and wellness. If you don’t want to pack for the weekend, you don’t have to. We have hostess gifts, market baskets, flip-flops…we even included organic tampons!

What’s in store, fashion-wise?
We really had a lot of fun with this one—beach dresses, lots of swimwear and cover-ups, some key workout/athleisure items, sunglasses, footwear that’s perfect for the beach or running around town, and even some jewelry. We also wanted to include a really nice offering of “discovery” brands so the client could find something new and original. Printed Borgo de Nor dresses, for example; Rye swimsuits; Cali Dreaming rash guards; By James shoes, which are a feminine, elevated, easy slip-on. We have Maria Tash jewelry, Tidal flip-flops…it’s a real range, and we want it to feel special and different.

What about Goop Label?
Absolutely. This will be the first time that we’ve had Goop Label in a store, so it will be exciting for the customer to experience it in real life. The two key items for this pop-up are the Goop Swim Suite, which includes a one-piece that ties, as well as a short-short and a longer skirt with a slit up the side. We also have a beautiful linen caftan and have some great Goop Label basics, like our linen T-shirts, which have been a real hit online, and a couple of items that haven’t launched yet.

What was the strategy for Goop Label?
We launched it in September, and the idea is to create the perfect wardrobe of essentials with a fashion twist. We launch it each month in a capsule that includes between four and six products, and we typically sell out within the month. Once it’s sold, for the most part, it’s gone for good. It’s all made in Italy, and Gwyneth herself works on the design.

How has Goop’s e-commerce component grown under your leadership?
Our strategy is really to offer a modern lifestyle destination for the categories of beauty, fashion, home, and wellness. In all of those categories, with the exception of home, we have our own branded products as well as a very robust assortment of third-party brands. The way that we are trying to differentiate Goop as a destination for products is to really have an approach for each category that is unlike anything else you can find, either online or in a physical store. In fashion, it’s really about curation and discovery—we’re working with well-known brands that are well-distributed, like Ulla Johnson and Stella McCartney, for example, but we’re handpicking everything very carefully so you never find yourself in a situation where you’re completely overwhelmed by the assortment. When customers come to us, they know that they’re finding something that has been either discovered or very carefully vetted with the Goop stamp of approval.

And what about beauty?
We’ve positioned ourselves as a destination for nontoxic beauty products, and we’ve worked really hard to build out an assortment that is luxurious and effective, but free of a pretty long list of ingredients that have been linked to harmful health effects. In home, our approach has been about theme shops as we build out the assortment. We just launched our linen closet theme shop, where we have a great assortment of bedding and linens and home decor. In the spring we launched a gardening shop that had scissors, vases, and gorgeous gloves.

How did you end up at Goop?
I spent most of my career at LVMH in New York. I started in the watch and jewelry business on the marketing side, and then I spent a long time doing merchandising for the leather goods business. Then I worked for a little while on the digital business for Vuitton in the U.S. Then I moved to L.A. and made the transition to beauty, working for Beautycounter for a few years, doing merchandising and product strategy and product development. There, I developed a real passion for clean beauty. I came on to Goop as head of beauty—I was hired to work on the launch of our Goop by Juice Beauty skin care line, which launched a year ago, and to build out our beauty offerings in terms of product and content on the site.

How are you liking life in L.A.?
I love L.A.! I’m so happy we made the switch—we actually did it with no jobs; we just moved. We really wanted to find a different quality of life, and it has not failed us.

Were you a Hamptons gal when you were living in New York?
I was! I spent a fair number of summers in the Hamptons, so I can really picture how this store can serve the weekenders out there.

Read the issue HERE.

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