Apple Martin — Gen Z’s newest It-girl

At Chanel’s couture show in Paris on Tuesday, all eyes were on one person: Apple Martin, the 18-year-old daughter of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. Impressive considering the FROW was populated by the likes of Tilda Swinton, Marion Cotillard, Sadie Sink, Lucy Boynton and Vanessa Paradis.

The Martin/Paltrow progeny was all anyone could talk about, whether it was in regards to her mother’s likeness, her inherited height (an estimated 5’9”) or her cute little Chanel loafers. From the moment she set foot in 31 Rue Chambon she became the coolest up-and-coming nepo baby on the scene.

Martin, who was born in 2004 (just a little something to make you feel old), has not currently made a dent in the showbiz industry, unlike many of the nepo babies who surround her. Brooklyn Beckham, in comparison, was modelling by age 16, Lily-Rose Depp landed her first role at 15 and Blue Ivy was technically a Grammy winner at eight. They start ‘em young in the nepo-verse.

As a result, Martin’s been able to live a pretty lowkey life. However, there is some intel on Apple’s pre-It Girl existence — here’s everything we know, so you can brace yourself for the world’s next Gen Z icon.

The late Karl Lagerfeld managed to predict the future when little Apple Martin was just four, according to fashion journalist and socialite Derek Blasberg. After the Chanel show, Blasberg tweeted a series of pictures of Martin with the caption: “Karl Lagerfeld met Apple Martin when she was four years old and declared that one day she’d be a Chanel girl. It happened today!”

In fact, back in 2016, Gwyneth almost wore the more mature version of Apple’s Chanel FROW look to the Chanel haute couture spring/summer 16/17 show, where she posed for pictures with Lagerfeld. And when Lagerfeld died in 2019, Paltrow posted a selfie of the pair together on her Instagram with the caption: “Dearest Karl Lagerfeld, there will never be another like you. Thank you for your incredible contribution to fashion and wit.”

Martin has been papped hanging out with her dad’s long term girlfriend Dakota Johnson multiple times since the pair first got together in 2017. The two have been seen grabbing coffee together, going for dog walks and walking arm in arm as they stroll down the street. It’s all very cute.

Paltrow seems to like Johnson as much as her daughter does. The Goop founder and her former husband infamously ‘consciously uncoupled’ back in 2014, to much dismay (and a little light mockery). Five months later, Paltrow started dating her new husband Brad Falchuck and three years after that Chris Martin was revealed to be dating Johnson. By 2019 the co-parents seemed very cool with the other’s new partners, as the four were spotted holidaying in the Hamptons together. And in an Instagram Q&A last year, Paltrow responded to a question asking “Do you love Dakota Johnson?” with the answer: “Very much.”

How you could be the teenage daughter of Gwyneth and not give her a little bit of a hard time for jade egg-gate and vagina candle selling? Luckily, Martin seems to be a normal teen and finds the humour in some of her mum’s ultra-wellness habits, as was made clear in a TikTok she narrated for the Goop account back in 2021.

Providing the voice over for her mum’s morning routine, Martin says: “So first my mum drinks her Goop Glow Super Powder and she eats nothing except for dates and almond butter so she will have that [to eat]. I suppose the Goop Glow [product] is a part of her cleanse, which she’s been on since… before I was born, apparently.

“And it’s 8am and she’s been doing this since 7am. She just prances around the bathroom putting on her millions of Goop Glow products for her glowing skin.

“Then she gets to work making some more vagina eggs, and candles — also vagina candles, and vagina perfumes and yeah, just everything vagina.”

Martin, 18 has flown the nest for her first year at an American university, the name of which Gwyneth and Chris are keeping very tight lipped about. However, that hasn’t stopped Gwyneth talking about how much she misses her daughter at every opportunity.

In September, during an interview with CBS Morning News, Gwyneth described Apple’s departure for college as “almost as profound as giving birth.” A month later, during a chat with People magazine, she said of Apple’s college move: “It was horrible. It was truly horrifying.” Talking about dropping her daughter off at college, she says, “I was sick to my stomach, bursting into tears."

In an article for Gawker, writer Olivia Craighead outlines her hypothesis for why Apple will be one of the most successful nepo babies of our generation: because she has big, far apart eyes.

This quirk, Craighead explains, cannot be bought like buccal fat removal or nose jobs can. “Anyone can have their buccal fat removed, but as far as I know, plastic surgeons have not yet figured out how to move your eyes half an inch closer to your temples,” Craighead posits. “Maybe our next It Girl will have something else doctors can’t fix, like massive ears.

“So congratulations to Apple Martin on inheriting her dad’s genetics! Like [Anya] Taylor-Joy, Kate Moss, Gemma Ward, and Miranda Kerr before her, her eyes have it.” The eyes do indeed have it, and Apple is well on track to becoming our newest It Girl.