Here are some photos of Gwyneth Paltrow out and about in LA over the weekend – she was headed for a workout, apparently. Can I just have a word about those workout pants/Capris? They do not look comfortable at all. They do not look like great workout pants. I bet they chafe AND fall down at the waist. There’s nothing worse than having to adjust your clothing constantly during a workout.

Meanwhile, if you love or hate Gwyneth and her absurd Goop, you’ll probably want to skim this New York Times article. The NYT didn’t really profile her in a traditional sense, but they basically said that Gwyneth was the groundbreaker, the first of her kind as far as celebrity/lifestyle/branding crap goes. I’m sure that pleased Gwyneth to no end – I mean, she only started Goop because she was bored and the parts started drying up. Now her side project has defined her brand and become relatively profitable, and other celebrity women are following suit. That’s why she’s so smug – she’s “the first.” (Except she isn’t the first, but whatever.) Here are my favorite parts:

[Gwyneth] is not alone; with her is Lisa Gersh, the 55-year-old owner of said apartment, a founder of Oxygen Media, the former chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Tracy Anderson devotee and, as of last month, C.E.O. of Goop, the aspirational — and controversial — lifestyle wellness-blog-cum-travel-and-cooking-tip-sheet-cum-shopping website Ms. Paltrow founded in 2008, and which Ms. Paltrow says she likes to think of as “contextual commerce.”

“The other day Drew Barrymore and I were talking, and she said, ‘Thank you for going first and getting all the scratches,’ ” Ms. Paltrow said, noting that Ms. Barrymore had started a cosmetic line, Flower, in 2012. This was not long after Jessica Alba created her site, the Honest Company, to offer natural baby products and diapers; which was only a few years before Blake Lively founded Preserve, a made-in-America crafty vision; and Ellen DeGeneres introduced her E.D. brand, an ambitious project that bowed on QVC last month with holiday home wares and will expand next year into numerous product categories, as well as a website and bricks and mortar retail; and Reese Witherspoon announced that she was starting Draper James, a lifestyle brand, due in 2015.

The question is why, and whether it will last.

“It’s like heroin,” said Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair and host of the New Establishment Summit. “You get on Twitter, and then you are dispensing advice about face cream to 500 followers, and the next thing you know you are a lifestyle guru.”

“Actors are not making anywhere as much money as they used to,” Mr. Carter said. “Hollywood is not making the kinds of movies that require gifted performers. They are making the kind of tent pole movies that require rippling abs, and women as extras. So you have to make up that income somehow.”

Between the heightened competition and the expansion plans, it’s hard not to wonder if Ms. Paltrow considers herself primarily an actor or a businesswoman. “I don’t like to think I have to be one thing or the other,” she said, looking out over the East River at the sunset. Ms. Gersh shakes her head and joined in.

“You know,” she said, “lots of people have multiple careers. I was a lawyer, and then one day someone called and the next thing I knew I was in TV — —”

“People like to classify you, and when you start pushing out of your box it makes them nervous,” Ms. Paltrow said. “There’s a lot of resistance to women coming to the table with anything new. But if it were Justin Timberlake or Jay Z or even Donald Trump, everyone would be like, ‘OK.’”

She thought for a moment. “If I had to say something, I would say I am a generator of creative content,” she said. Ms. Gersh nodded approvingly.

[From The NYT]

Oh, Gwyneth. Really? Gwyneth playing the sexism card. SMH. She and Gersh joke about their goal being “world domination,” but even some of industry experts – and TOM FORD – are quoted as saying they don’t know if this is just a dumb trend that will die out in a few years, like “hey, remember when celebrities had lifestyle brands?” Oh, and of course Drew Barrymore “thanked” Gwyneth for being the first. OF COURSE.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.