The queen of online gift guides
Kate Wolfson has brought her viral Goop gift-guiding skills to Substack.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Embedded is signing off for the holidays—see you on the 31st! —Kate
In retrospect, this conversation with
was a fitting end to 2023. Not only is it a conversation about gift guides, which Wolfson was part of curating at Goop for eight years before launching her Substack, Present Perfect, but it was also, to put it plainly, a shit show. My cats spent 80 percent of the call yowling and wrestling, Wolfson’s kids crashed the Zoom call 30 minutes in, and halfway through I realized my phone had stopped recording and we needed to start again. The fact that this interview has made it to your inbox at all is proof that Christmas miracles can happen.Which is good news for anyone realizing that it’s December 20th and that they’re still in need of gifts. (Don’t worry: Wolfson solves this problem for you at the end of the interview.) But if you don’t celebrate Christmas, or are a responsible person who wrapped their presents weeks ago, Present Perfect has a gift guide for every occasion. Wolfson’s hyper-specific, super-sporadic, delightfully chaotic guides have covered everything from the “witchy, bitchy, and a smidge kitschy” to “the 39th birthday of a rapidly aging millennial who has everything (that matters) but wants more more more.”
At this point, Wolfson says she pretty much sleeps and breathes gift guides, and can’t stop herself from saving, screenshotting, and curating recommendations even though her career has moved on. Her Substack, instead, serves as an outlet for this hobby, where she’s been scheming up guides and taking requests for the past eight months. In this conversation, we chat about what makes a good gift guide, gifting as a love language, and what everyone is buying this holiday season.
What brought you to gift guides?
So I started at this shopping website a million years ago. When that shut down I went over to Daily Candy. When that shut down, I did a short stint at The Zoe Report, and then I went over to Goop, which was kind of my longest [gig]. I was there for eight years. And I've always done gift guides wherever I work, but at Goop, the gift guides are such a thing. And that's always been one of my favorite things to work on, and it's such a group effort. We would have copywriting parties, which is the dorkiest thing I think you could ever say out loud.
I'm a college dropout and to me, Goop was like getting an MBA. It was like higher education. And I think everything we ever did on the content side always came from a place of service. And I think that's been my biggest thing and I've applied it to everything I've done, is providing a service. And I think that's what a gift guide should be. It should provide a service. That's what any shopping story should be. That's really what these are. Gift guides is a genre, but it's really a shopping story.
And then when I left, I guess officially last year, I started consulting with brands and I love working with brands so much, so that's been really fun. But I would instinctively save stuff [for gift guides]. And I would just document and screenshot and I was like, “What do I do?” And then that's when Substack started to be really good for people, especially with the state of journalism and content. I just loved that so many writers were going over to that platform. I was like, I wonder if it would lend itself at all to that kind of a format.
How do you go about sourcing items?
Because of my job, I spend, I mean, at least eight hours, nine hours a day on the internet. So I just end up falling down rabbit holes. I'm a curious person by nature. So I just fall down these internet rabbit holes, and a lot of times, I'll be honest, it might start from a paid ad. And then I just go on a whole journey from that. Like, “Oh, I don't like that beaded ribbon, I like this one,” and then it's just like, “Oh, that'll make for a cool gift or something I want to buy for myself,” and then I add it into a tab. It's actually called, "Shit I Like." And then from there, once I see a theme emerging, I'll move it into another tab, like the one I'm working on right now is like, we're going into Christmas and New Year's, glittery stuff is everywhere. So glittery, sparkly, shiny things that you will actually want to wear the rest of the year, too.
How much writing or editorializing do you do in your guides? I'm thinking about the classic complaint about online recipes, like, “I don't wanna read your life story to get the recipe.”
I think if it comes naturally I'll write about it. But again, this is the first time I'm really writing for myself. If all that comes to me about something is like a little punny one-liner, then that's what I'm gonna put in. And if it's something that really needs context, I'll put it in. And if it's something I have a personal story with, hell yeah I'll put it in because, I mean, that lends it more authenticity.
Your guides center around these hyper-specific genres. What are some of the hyper-specific themes you're seeing in the gifting world going into 2024?
I think what I've been noticing a lot of, and this isn't necessarily just for this year, but more and more brands are doing it, is really luxurious riffs on everyday things. Like sterling silver chopsticks. Or like, you know, an iced coffee tumbler that's beaded, or a beautiful canvas flower carrier. So it's beautiful everyday things. What it really boils down to is joy and pleasure. This might not be something that you would really think to buy for yourself or for somebody else but, if it's really beautiful and I do my job, you actually see the purpose in it beyond just it being something pretty.
You brought the gift guide to Substack, and one thing that Substack allows for is more communication with your audience than a traditional website. Have you heard success stories about gifts you've chosen? What's the relationship you have with readers of your gift guides?
First of all, I could talk about this stuff literally all day. So the more people who will talk to me about it, bring it on. Because I'm pretty new to Substack, most of my communication will happen on Instagram. But I'll have friends text me and be like, “I bought the wine apron.” I do get requests, which I love. A lot of times it's stuff for guys. And I have one guy-specific one. I feel like I should do another one, but we're already getting so late in the season. I don't know. This is gonna sound cheesy, but I really want it to come naturally. I don't want it to be something that I'm like, “God, I need three more things for this.”
Right. I have a lot of respect for the work you do because I know as someone who's been assigned to writing gift guides, who does not feel any special way about it, it is a lot of work.
Is it so weird that I love it?
No, it's great. It's a talent, I think, to have your eye be caught by things and then organize them, because it does not come naturally to me.
Here's the thing though, in real life, it's my love language. Like, my children are entirely too spoiled. I love giving gifts. If I see something that I think you're going to like, I'm going to get it for you.
I have a friend who does this and she's really good at it. My boyfriend loves tennis, and this friend was scrolling Etsy and she found these little tennis racket coasters. And she was like, “I saw these and thought you had to have 'em.” And I was like, “That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done.”
Etsy is incredible. I was wondering if you would bring that up. Very different, obviously, from Amazon or Alibaba or anything like that, but it really needs a lot of sifting.
Well, I have just one more question for you. If someone is reading this right now and they are still in need of a last-minute gift, what would be your recommendation?
If you don't want to risk it with shipping, go to your local candy store or bakery. The holidays are when they make the bulk of their money for the year, so it's obviously great to support them. Most will have chocolate or cookies or other festive sweets and treats that are essentially pre-wrapped and ready to gift. In LA, where I am based, I lean pretty heavily on Edelweiss, Valerie Confections (Valerie also has a Substack!), and And Sons. On the East Coast, I love Vesta Chocolate in NJ and obviously Economy Candy on the Lower East Side, NYC—here, just fill up a basket with retro candy and I promise whoever you're gifting will be thrilled.