Melania Trump is having a good week

And Substack is doubling down on their involvement in US election discourse.

Good morning everyone. Today’s letter is about: Goop’s layoffs yesterday, influencer Halley Kate’s self-made PR strategy, and US Open drama.

Meltdown at Goop (updated on 9/5 at 12:50pm ET)

I spend a lot of time in the career section of different brand sites to activate some clairvoyant sense about where their company “is going.” Let me give you an example – back in May, I wrote that Glossier was hiring a Fragrance Product Development Manager (which leads me to believe 2025 will be a big year for their fragrance category), and more recently I wrote that Substack is hiring a Health and Wellness-focused partnership role for “creators” which leads me to believe they’re doing a big recruiting push for writers (creators) in those categories. 

Yesterday, I was looking at the Goop career site and then clicked around the rest of the site and noticed… not much was going on. I think Yolo Journal has really trumped Goop’s former quality travel guides, and the dozens of shopping newsletters I subscribe to on Substack curate quiet luxury sweaters and makeup bags for me. That said, I still watch every one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Q+A Instagram Stories. But things have taken a turn in Paltrow’s temple of wellness.

Earlier this summer, Puck’s Rachel Strugatz wrote that, “Goop’s overall sales, which include Goop Beauty, have been more or less flat since 2021… U.S. retail sales for the brand were only in the six figures at Amazon and Sephora for the month of May. (Summer Fridays did millions in sales at Sephora during the same period.)” 

Last night, I was walking home from a meeting when a friend texted me that Goop laid off 20% of their team on Wednesday afternoon. “Everyone from director and above, CMO, everyone - gone.” Apparently, Gwyneth said employees would have until Friday to organize their things and log out of their emails, but while on the call (which lasted just minutes) everyone got locked out of everything - effective immediately.” Some employees have already changed their LinkedIn profiles in the hours following the layoff announcement. I reached out to the Goop team for a quote but haven’t heard back yet, stay tuned.

I spent last time texting some friends about the opportunity in the beauty and wellness editorial space – I miss the sicko, dirty headlines of people trying procedures (like a salmon sperm facial) and formulas (like one of Sakara’s many cleanses) and writing about them. Many of the beauty treatment features I see now are paid for by the brand so they’re automatically positive.

After I published this newsletter, the Goop team sent me the following:

“This story has more details that may be helpful to you, but two quick things on the post regarding goop:

1. It’s not accurate that everyone director level and above was part of the reduction. There are a number of C-suite, director and VP level employees still at the company.

2. On the call, Gwyneth didn’t say that people would have until Friday to log out of their emails. She said affected employees would be employed until Friday, but would not be expected to do any work after the call. Affected employees were given instructions so they could get their personal files following the call.

The reduction was a part of a larger restructure to reorientate the business around beauty and fashion, our two biggest revenue streams. Both are up significantly YOY (51% for G. Label, and 26% for goop Beauty).”

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Melania Trump is having a good week

Her only son, Barron, 18, chose New York University for undergrad which means he’ll have countless direct flights to Palm Beach, and Melania gets to stay in New York. Will be interesting to see if he tests the patience of bouncers at Phebe’s and even more interesting to see how New York media responds to his presence (I hope with respect).

This morning, Melania announced that she’s releasing a memoir titled Melania. In the announcement video she says, “As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny… I feel a responsibility to clarify the facts.” The book (which kind of looks like Sofia Coppola’s) also includes stories and images never before shared with the public. If you were looking to read this for your fall book club, I’m sorry, it takes 12-16 weeks to ship which puts us well after Election Day for arrival date (a friend suggested, “They have to print a trillion copies for the right wing dark money to keep in a warehouse first so it debuts #1.”)

By the way, Substack is doubling down on their involvement in the election discourse. Beginning today, there will be a U.S. election tab is available for all publishers and Substack readers on the web and in-app. “The tab will dynamically collate the latest news, analysis, and discussions from top politics publishers across the platform, and across the political spectrum, organized below live updates of the latest polling averages from

Nate Silver

.” Good day for Nate.

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If we had a water cooler, I’d talk to you about:

• The best fashion podcast, Recho Omondi’s The Cutting Room Floor, is back. Past guests on the provocative, insightful show have included Law Roach,

  Ana Andjelic
  and
  Juliana Salazar
  . Omondi told The Face this week that, “I always say that we don’t cover the red carpet, runway, red carpet products, celebrities or trends. If you’re interested in that, there are a million fashion media platforms to get that information.”

• Jessica Fern (author of Polysecure) is the reason all your dating app matches are suddenly calling themselves “ENM.” Anna Silman (former NYMag colleague <3) flew to North Carolina to meet the author and discuss bad breakups, good divorces, and her poly bible. She also spoke to Allison P. Davis (another former NYMag colleague <3) about how many copies of Fern’s book were abandoned around Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (great image). I texted Anna about the story and she told me, “I’ve been dying to know why everyone seems to be talking about Polysecure right now even though the book came out four years ago, so I flew down to North Carolina to grill the author. It was sort of encouraging to hear that even Jessica Fern is figuring it out as she goes along — although if she can’t, what hope is there for the rest of us us!? (This is also my subtle hint to any hot well-adjusted bi girls — an oxymoron — to hit me up on Feeld).”

• Miranda July and Prada teamed up to make a weird little self-help hotline. I called this morning, this is what it sounded like (it’s AI):

• Influencer Halley Kate is donating the thousands of dollars she’s made from TikTok’s creator fund (from a video about a friend who absolutely annihilated girl code) to teacher wishlists on Amazon. I’ve been following this drama closer than the Housewife franchises, but I’ll let you do your own research. Bottom line: Halley is a class act who is developing her own PR in real-time.

@halleykateLOVE YALL🤍

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• Apparently the buzz at a lot of the shows this week is the whole Anna and Naomi drama. What I haven’t really reported is that Anna switched the plans at the last minute because she wanted to go hang in the Rolex suite with Roger Federer at the US Open.

• Marta’s gifting suite is returning to LA and NYC this fall. And Dieux (the company she co-founded) is not in her Instagram bio anymore 👀

• Niche burger news:

  • In-N-Out quietly did a two-week popup in Paris to protect their trademark (and avoid a competitor using their name even if they have no willing to go outside of the US, let alone beyond western states of the US).

  • And back in the US, Shake Shack announced that they’re closing nine underperforming restaurants (five of which are in California). In a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, the New York City-based fast-casual chain said the move was, “in part due to changes in the trade area and, in some cases, are negatively impacting other Shacks within their proximity by cannibalizing sales.” Smart move!

• Did any of you go to Fyre Festival R1?

• Chrissy Rutherford, Aleksija Vujicic, Cami Tellez and I are speaking on a panel next week, if you want to come!