Blake Lively has announced that she will be closing her website Preserve, over a year after it first launched. The 28-year-old revealed that she has chosen to end the project, which she felt was launched "before it was ready", in order to focus on a new business venture.
Blake Lively is closing her website Preserve
"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," she told Vogue. "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!'"
She continued: "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?"
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Blake launched the website in July last year
The former Gossip Girl actress also admitted that while she expects to face some criticism from the media and public for ending the project, she has a plan for an exciting new business, closer to her original aim.
"I know what it'll look like, what I'm facing publicly, that people are just going to have a heyday with this. But it's so much worse to continue to put something out there - to ask my team to put something out there - that isn't the best we can do. 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."
Blake first launched Preserve in July last year. "While the whole world races to keep up with technology, we tighten our laces, join the race, but our end goal is to preserve what's already there," she wrote in her first ever editor's letter.
The site, which comprises of e-commerce, charity initiatives and inspirational quotes and pictures, is set to close on 9 October, with products still on sale until then. Blake herself has contributed designs, including her first ever dress creation, as well as a bag named after her daughter James.
