Gwyneth Paltrow Is Kicking Off Libra Season With a New Furniture Collection

Rachel Wallace

Wed, September 25, 2024 at 1:46 PM UTC

6 min read

Courtesy of CB2

“I’m a Libra, so I live for the feeling of beauty,” Gwyneth Paltrow tells AD. It is only fitting, then, that on September 26—three days into Libra season and one day before her own birthday—the actor and Goop founder is launching a collection of furniture and tableware with CB2 that perfectly reflects her signature tranquil yet elegant style.

Inspired by modern Parisian apartments and midcentury Italian modernist furniture—as well as by Paltrow’s own refuge in Montecito, California, which she built from the ground up with help from Roman and Williams along with Brigette Romanek and shared with AD in 2022—the collection features dinnerware, glassware, and statement furniture pieces like sofas, dining tables, a chandelier, and a club chair which feels like a natural successor to the Gwyneth swivel chair from her first collaboration with CB2 in 2018.

That chair, which CB2 president Ryan Turf confirms is still a top seller for the brand, just may have contributed to the bouclé resurgence of a few years ago, and while Paltrow did incorporate the fabric again this time around, she’s also expanding to more plush textures, including faux mohair and shearling.

“I think it’s about creating something that’s timeless,” says Turf. “The bouclé trend was a nice, almost coincidence, but our collections with Gwyneth are really about design and it’s really about taste level. All these pieces are less about setting a trend and more about just making beautiful timeless pieces.”

Below, Paltrow tells AD more about the collection and how she lives.

Architectural Digest: What’s different about this collection compared to the one from 2018? How has your style evolved?

Gwyneth Paltrow: I love the first collection and I still have a bunch of those pieces actually in my house. But it’s like with everything, you keep evolving and having new ideas. I wanted to do the next iteration and push it a little bit further. I’ve gotten more into a Hollywood Regency type of Italian mix of a vibe, and I just wanted to make some things that I couldn't necessarily find. I guess the dinnerware is sort of a little bit more French country, but it’s supposed to all be able to live together in this eclectic, wonderful mix. It was a really, really, really fun process to kind of identify, okay, what do I want now? And then go from there.

The Albertine wood dining table surrounded by Perle shearling dining chairs, with the Augustine chandelier hanging above
Courtesy of CB2

A big hit from the last collection was the bouclé chair, and you have that fabric featured prominently in this collection again. Do you see bouclé as a timeless fabric? Do you think it’ll ever go out of style?

I feel everything goes out of style at some point. It’s a little bit of an oscillating thing, but the great thing about bouclé is it’s not trendy. It’s warm. It’s textural. It’s inviting. I think when it’s in a neutral color, it kind of does never go out of style. It offers this nice depth to furniture that I really like, and I don’t think it’s too much of a statement. I could see other things more quickly going out of style. It also wears really well, bouclé. I think it kind of really stands the test of time.

What inspired you to add materials like faux mohair and shearling, and to lean into texture?

In my own home I have a mix of textures around. Leathers and woods and mohairs and flat weaves and shearlings, and then ceramic and brass around. I really live in a mix of textures. It is my taste, but I think also some of it is out of a reaction to the very neutral furniture vibe thing happening now for quite a while. I’m just a little bit uninspired by it. Everything’s in a neutral linen—a neutral velvet maybe. Certainly in California there’s a real trend of these neutrals and they start to make me feel kind of sad. Having a mix of textures, I think, conveys layers and layers convey depth. As I’m talking to you, I’m looking around my own little family room and I have a carpet on top of a carpet and I have a big French-woven basket with firewood in it, and I have two bouclé chairs. It’s about having a mix of things that you feel have got soul, and you can really convey that with different fabrics.

How did your own home inspire this collection, if it did?

On the club chair, we did a marble leg with the brass foot. That chair is kind of the bonkers, amazing, very unusual chair that I’m obsessed with. I was sort of bringing in elements of my crazy bar at my home in Montecito that’s all marble. And Lindsey Adelman did this insane brass light thing on my ceiling in Montecito. You can see some of that aesthetic all through the collection really.

Goop’s Noora Raj Brown and Megan O'Neill with Paltrow on the Mylene sofa — Goop’s Noora Raj Brown and Megan O'Neill with Paltrow on the Mylene sofa
Courtesy of CB2

Obviously, everything you do with Goop is centered around wellness. How do you think having a comfortable and stylish home supports wellness and wellbeing?

I think it depends. I’m a Libra, so I live for the feeling of beauty, and I am very visual. For me, it’s an inextricable part of my wellness. I want to see things that are pleasing and warm and comfortable. I’ll have anxiety if something is broken or stained or if there’s something really out of order. I’m like the kind of person that needs to make sure all the dishes are put away before I go to bed.

Do you have any tips for people who want to get better at curating their own personal style?

Sometimes I think there’s pressure to know exactly how you would express yourself in terms of style, but it’s just not some people’s thing. I would say, if it is or if you want it to be your thing, if someone has real interest in it, I just think you have to take risks. If you love something, lean into it, and sometimes that’s where real originality comes from.