In one of her most A-list moves yet, Gwyneth Paltrow once hired a 'personal book curator'
From the unusual products flogged on health and wellbeing site Goop to her one-of-a-kind beauty habits, Gwyneth Paltrow never fails to surprise us. Case in point: she once hired a ‘personal book curator’.
Back in 2001, the former actress decided to redesign her Los Angeles home and realised that to complete the gram-worthy look, she needed a good five to six hundred books to fill the empty shelves.
So what does a Hollywood star do when their personal novel collection doesn’t quite make the necessary requirements? They call in a celebrity-approved book curator of course.
The 46-year-old asked longtime friend, Thatcher Wine, a long-time book collector and the founder of Juniper Books, to complete the task. But with A-list clientele including the likes of Laura Dern and Shonda Rhimes, he was certainly no stranger to the job in hand.
In a recent interview with Town and Country, Wine explained how he went about curating the shelves in the mother-of-two's impressive home.
“I looked at books she already owned, which focused on fashion, art, culture, photography, and architecture, as well as books that her kids liked,” he told the publication. “We expanded on those topics, and for the kids, we included a selection of classics that we thought they might like as they got older.”
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But Thatcher’s number one trick was ensuring that the books which formed part of her original collection are “easy to grab off the shelves” in the family room while the statement pages are stacked in harder-to-reach places.
Over in the dining room, Wine made sure to organise the books in a more minimal fashion in keeping with a “rigid colour palette of black, white, and grey since it was less of a space where one might hang out and read”.
Upon closer inspection, heavyweight coffee table books take price of place with shelves dedicated to artists including Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Her shelves also express a love for fashion with labels including Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and Valentino earning a special mention.
But what advice does Thatcher have for us mere mortals? Over on Goop, the book curator recommended finding a balance when filling your bookshelves at home.
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“It’s not about having it all be so ‘perfect’ that no one wants to disturb them,” he writes. “It’s about the right balance of making them look like they belong, but also that they should be read and enjoyed.”
When it comes to creating a family-friendly library, classics such as Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island are great investments with novels Sherlock Holmes sets and Jane Austen novels will keep older readers happy.
We just hope Paltrow hired extra cleaning staff because those shelves are sure to need some serious dusting...