Gwyneth Paltrow on fashion, kids and women in their 40s

Gwyneth Paltrow says 'by 40, all women are amazing'. Photo / Getty Images

In case it had slipped your mind, Gwyneth Paltrow has an astonishingly brilliant body. At 44, the Hollywood actress and Goop founder has long made her food and exercise habits the stuff of celebrity legend, and now she's proved it works with a shoot for the US version of Harper's Bazaar.

For the magazine's November 2016 issue Paltrow has posed up a storm in the aisles of a supermarket (and, side note, one that's definitely not Wholefoods given the Lucky Charms and Cocoa Pops in her trolley) in a wardrobe largely consisting of black underwear.

"What's sexy now" is the issue's cover line, laid over an image of Gwyneth mischievously smiling, eyes covered by a luxe yet undeniably kinky lace eye mask, a pair of $73,400 Bulgari earrings glinting out from underneath her perfectly curled blonde hair.

Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Photo / Alexi Lubomirski

Inside, we see her sidled up to the cereals in a sleek LBD (with a slit right up to there), sashaying past the pasta in a Louis Vuitton jacket, Proenza Schouler swimsuit and Saint Laurent heels and luxuriating on the checkout in nothing more than a Saint Laurent blazer, an Eres bikini and Gianvito Rossi sandals.

Perhaps ironically for such a barely-there shoot, the feature sees Gwyneth discussing Goop's foray into ready-to-wear which debuted last month, with a £524 grey blazer among the offerings.

"The clothing line is just one thread in the quilt of what I'm trying to create, which is a truly modern, global lifestyle brand," she explains to her interviewer, comedian Samantha Bee.

"The clothes themselves are not meant to be daring at all-these are reimagined basics. The daring part of it is that we want to change the way fashion is served to the consumer."

Although perhaps that philosophy is not quite borne out in the styling of the aforementioned LBD in the Harper's Bazaar shoot.

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#GLabel edition 02 just landed in the goop shop. Shop the Gwyneth Soft Crombie Coat via the link in our bio. 😎 #blinkanditsgone 📷: @colienarentmeester

A post shared by goop (@goop) on Oct 11, 2016 at 10:14am PDT

"Some people have said to me, 'Why haven't you gone more fully into wellness products?'-which is our next thing, but I wanted to make sure that as we grew in scale we were diversifying across all the different verticals so that we could be as credible in them as we are in food and that kind of stuff," Paltrow hints of Goop's forthcoming expansion, confirming that those rumours she was stepping down from the business earlier this year are false.

In the interview, Paltrow also discusses her admiration for her 12 year-old daughter, Apple: "In my case, I've borne these two kids into a particularly strange circumstance. They are going to have to fend off a lot and protect themselves from a lot of projections and prejudice about who they are, coming from the family that they come from," she muses.

"My daughter is super ballsy. I always follow her lead. I actually don't need to encourage her to take risks. She likes to push herself; she wants to see how far she can get. It's really inspiring to see that in a young woman."

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bona nit des de les muntanyes de Barcelona. Poma, Moisès i jo ❤️

A post shared by Gwyneth Paltrow (@gwynethpaltrow) on May 29, 2016 at 12:10pm PDT

The star of 90s classics like Sliding Doors and Shakespeare in Love has been in the spotlight for over 20 years and tells Bee how her father stopped her from getting too carried away early in her career.

"I remember when I was maybe 27 years old and kind of at the height of my movie stardom-it was around the time of the Oscar and this and that. I think I was very much believing my own hype, which how could you not?" she recalls.

"I was sitting with my dad, feeling great about my life and everything that was happening, and he was like, 'You know, you're getting a little weird...You're kind of an asshole.' And I was like, 'What the hell?' I was totally devastated. But it turned out to be basically the best thing that ever happened to me."

When Bee then says that someone once told her the same thing, and she hopes that will never happen again, Paltrow replies: "They won't because you're past 40, and by 40, all women are amazing." Confirmation if it were needed that she's perfectly content with her grown-up status.

While comments like "I cannot function if there is a physical mess around me. If everything is falling apart, I go on a cleaning frenzy" offer the requisite suggestion that Paltrow is just like the rest of us, her alternative take on super star Beyoncé reminds us that that is simply not the case.

"If you met her and you didn't know who she was or what she did, it would be inconceivable to you that she was Beyoncé. Some really famous people, even when they're off-duty, have this energy that is sort of overpowering. She does not have that," says Paltrow. "She is so dialed down. She's the sweetest mother. She's very shy. You would not believe she is Beyoncé Knowles. You would be like, "No, that was not her." And that's why when I see her perform, I'm like, 'Oh, shit, I forgot.'"

Although there is one concession to Bey's normality - "She doesn't make grilled cheese. Definitely not. I make the grilled cheese." We just hope she puts an apron on first over that designer tailoring and the teeny bikinis.