Blake Lively Finally Deletes Her Antebellum-Obsessed Lifestyle Site Preserve
Last year, actress Blake Lively launched her very own shoppable “lifestyle” website called “Preserve.” What began as an inscrutable, MySpace-style GOOP imitation quickly deteriorated into something more sinister, with Blake posting again and again about her longing for the Antebellum South.
Today, Blake tells Vogue (the same outlet she used to promote Preserve last year) that she is shuttering the site on October 9, because it has not lived up to its “original mission”:
We have an incredible team of people who do beautiful work, but we launched the site before it was ready, and it never caught up to its original mission: It’s not making a difference in people’s lives, whether superficially or in a meaningful way.
And that’s the whole reason I started this company, not just to fluff myself, like, “I’m a celebrity! People will care what I have to say!” It was so never meant to be that, and that kind of became the crutch because it was already up and already running, and it’s hard to build a brand when you’re running full steam ahead—how do you catch up?
How, indeed.
For those who can’t live without a place where you can buy $495 paint-splattered jeans while reading a muffin recipe inspired by African-American struggle, rest assured that Blake does not plan to leave the “lifestyle website” industry forever.
“I’m going to take this hit, and the only way I can prove all the negative reactions wrong is to come back with a plan that will rock people,” she said. “And I have that plan. And I’m so excited about it, and that’s what gave me the courage to do this...I’ve asked my assistant to just play ‘Shake It Off’ on a loop—it feels really good to listen to it on a loop!”
I’ve asked my assistant to order me Preserve’s $95 wooden bike crate while it’s still available. Just kiddin’.