Blake Lively To Close Preserve Site, Will No Longer Be Your Lifestyle Guru

Sad news for Blake Lively fans who strictly purchase their jewelry, clothing and artisanal items from Preserve, Blake's lifestyle site: It's closing down. You'll have to get your carved-walnut saltcellar ($10.90, marked down from $18) somewhere else!

The actress launched the site last summer, aiming to bring the best of everything to consumers, and influence their taste, as well: "We might post a favorite recipe from a great café, or turn you on to your next favorite band." Preserve followed in the footsteps of other actresses' lifestyle brands, such as Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP, and Jessica Alba's The Honest Company — which was recently hit with a consumer lawsuit for selling products that reportedly contain less-than-natural ingredients. While the three stars have earned plenty of admiration from their non-famous female peers, their respective sites have also drawn criticism for their "vanity project" aspect.

Preserve will officially cease peddling what the site refers to as "the stories and creations of artisans" on October 9. Back in June, Lively had told Time magazine that the site's kickoff had been rushed months too early, in order to coincide with an August 2014 Vogue cover. "I couldn’t call Anna Wintour and say, ‘I need six more months,'" she said, echoing a phrase we constantly find ourselves saying.

Now, just over a year after that fateful cover, Lively called Vogue to explain why Preserve just didn't work out. "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,” she said, probably while sitting atop a gorgeous horse, wrapped in a custom-made Pendleton blanket.

"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!,'" she continues, while she was almost certainly sorting a pile of cashmere baby britches flecked with conflict-free diamonds. "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?”

Blake knows what people (i.e., us) will say about the site's closure, but she's not ruling out an eventual relaunch. “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. And I have that plan. And I’m so excited about it, and that’s what gave me the courage to do this, to say, ‘You know what, I’m going to give myself one more shot at this, and I really have to do it as well as I can do it this time."

It's onwards and upwards for the wealthy actress and wife of Ryan Reynolds. She'll soldier on, in her luxurious yet totally eco-sustainable way — and she's even harnessing the power of Taylor Swift to push through. “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!”

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