JUST BEFORE Thanksgiving in 2022, Gwen Whiting was getting her hair done when a friend forwarded her an Instagram post about the Laundress, the line of upscale, plant-derived, low-preservative ecoconscious products that Whiting co-founded in 2002. In 2019, she had sold the company to Unilever for a reported $100 million; two years later, she had finished her employment contract under the conglomerate, which promptly terminated her company email address. Which is why Whiting found out only through her DMs that her former start-up was warning customers to immediately stop using all of its products. Two weeks later, the Laundress recalled some 8 million items: They potentially contained dangerous bacteria that gave consumers unsightly rashes and posed serious infection risks for the immunocompromised.
Under Whiting, the Laundress had fostered a devoted fan base, and many of those customers began to send her messages through Instagram and her personal website. They were asking questions, frantic about their sheets and skin. "I was like, 'I don't know what's going on. I haven't been there," she recalls. One panicked woman told her she had just washed all her cashmere sweaters in soap from the Laundress. "I wanted to say, 'You're going to be fine. Don't panic," Whiting tells me. But she dug up her contracts from the sale, looked for the nondisparagement and noncompete clauses, and saw that she would have to stay quiet for another two years.
Denne historien er fra Dec 2-15, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra Dec 2-15, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Enchanting and Exhausting
Wicked makes a charming but bloated film.
Nicole Kidman Lets Loose
She's having a grand old time playing wealthy matriarchs on the verge of blowing their lives up.
How Mike Myers Makes His Own Reality
Directing him in Austin Powers taught me what it means to be really, truly funny.
The Art of Surrender
Four decades into his career, Willem Dafoe is more curious about his craft than ever.
The Big Macher Restaurant Is Back
ON A WARM NIGHT in October, a red carpet ran down a length of East 26th Street.
Showing Its Age
Borgo displays a confidence that can he only from experience.
Keeping It Simple on Lower Fifth
Jack Ceglic and Manuel Fernandez-Casteleiro's apartment is full of stories but not distractions.
REASON TO LOVE NEW YORK
THERE'S NOT MUCH in New York that has staying power. Every other day, a new scandal outscandals whatever we were just scandalized by; every few years, a hotter, scarier downtown set emerges; the yoga studio up the block from your apartment that used to be a coffee shop has now become a hybrid drug front and yarn store.
Disunion: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A Rift in the Family My in-laws gave me a book by a eugenicist. Our relationship is over.
Gwen Whiting
Two years after a mass recall and a bacterial outbreak, the founder of the Laundress is on cleanup duty.
