At the beginning of the year, I migrated this newsletter from Substack to beehiiv. Recently, beehiiv announced a suite of new features, including communities. If you take a look at Back Row’s, which just launched, you’ll see that it’s sort of like a fancy Reddit — a destination for subscribers to chat with a creator/author and each other on a variety of topics. For now, I’ve set up a handful of threads about various subjects this newsletter covers regularly, including the 2027 Met Gala, Anna Wintour, Gwyneth Paltrow, the Hermès Game, and more.

Another community feature I love: if you open the link on your mobile phone, you’ll have the option to download the Back Row app, where you can access and engage in the community and read all of Back Row’s articles.

While certain community threads will be paywalled in the coming days, everything will be free for the first 24 to 48 hours from the time of publication of this newsletter. I also currently have an AMA going so you can ask me anything. I’ll endeavor to reply to every question within a day. And please, invite your friends to Back Row to join the community with you so we can continue making this newsletter one of the most engaging places on the internet.

I’ll keep you posted about what’s happening in the community as it chugs along. If you have requests for threads you’d like to see posted there, feel free to reply to this email.

I also promised when I migrated to beehiiv about eight months ago that I would update you on how it’s going after I’d settled in. I heard from a lot of people who were considering making the move from Substack to beehiiv (or other platforms) after I announced my move, and I’m still happy to advise if you have specific questions. But here are the highlights.

The beehiiv team has had a lot of reps with migrations now, and the process was much easier than I expected and read about. The team at beehiiv showed me what to do to transfer Stripe subscriptions to this platform and import the many thousands of people on the free tier as well. We knocked that part out in less than an hour, and the team helped me out with the minor glitches and general onboarding questions that came up over the next few days. 

To ensure my open rate stayed high and these emails stayed out of spam folders, beehiiv advised me to run a list clean-up automation to remove people who either hadn’t ever opened an email or who hadn’t opened an email in a long time for any particular reason (e.g., emails were going to spam, people didn’t know they’d signed up, etc.). This cut dead weight from my list, and my open rate skyrocketed to nearly 60 percent.

Additionally, while I previously felt stuck on Substack, I’ve seen steady growth in paid subscriptions. Running a paywalled newsletter is never easy, but subscribers on beehiiv seem to be stickier than they were on Substack, which I hear anecdotally from other beehiiv creators as well. This may be because beehiiv doesn’t jumble its publications into noisy algorithmic feeds. It may also be that I’m working harder to find subscribers, and signing up people with higher intent than those acquired from the Substack recommendation network. And it probably also has to do with beehiiv’s support, including specific and concrete advice on how to run this business and retain and grow subscribers. (Shout out to Ryan, Bill, Luke, and Preeya on the beehiiv team.)

Since migrating, paid Back Row subscriptions across the newsletter and podcast are up more than 20 percent. And since I’m not paying Substack’s 10 percent fees, I’m taking home an additional five figures of revenue, which I can reinvest into my business — on marketing, freelance support, etc. I’m a late tax filer and in reviewing my earnings and fees recently to finish my return, I saw how much I paid last year to Substack for what was basically hosting.

Additionally, beehiiv gave me a discount to share with all of you. Get 30 percent off your first three months with the code AMY30.

It is never an easy decision to migrate a business, so please reach out if you’re a creator and want to talk about any of this. And I hope to catch you all in the community soon! 

Don’t Call it Pilates — It’s ‘Haute Wellness’

Handbag sales aren’t exactly what they used to be, so brands like Dior are trying to expand into “wellness.” This is because, per The Business of Fashion and McKinsey’s 2026 State of Fashion report, wellness spending is projected to grow to $2.5 trillion in 2028, up from $2 trillion in 2026. Wellness spending encompasses “products and services geared toward nutrition, sleep, ‘mindfulness’ and other pursuits of the body and mind.”

Dior calls its wellness products “haute wellness.” Its wellness line sheet includes the “happiness program” involving a sleep expert (you can sign up at one of the brand’s 12 spas), a post-partum “protocol” called “haute motherhood” which starts at $3,300, and a four-day trip to the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc for $30,000. Dior also apparently employs a “reverse aging board” (people who advise on anti-aging skincare development). The brand’s exercise of choice is pilates, which a Dior pilates instructor said goes with the brand because of its “heritage and the classic form.”

This is an unsurprising evolution of both the wellness industry — which commodifies health and happiness as luxuries — and luxury fashion. As we’ve heard again and again in “Retail Confessions,” luxury brands may be less like retail shops and more like hospitality businesses these days, organizing jewelry dinners and shopping trips and catering to clients’ whims at all hours of the day.

Case in Point: Get a Load of This Hermès Trip

A former sales associate of Hermès in Paris recently told me that the brand had some work to do when it came to client events and clienteling in general. Unsurprising for a company that derives brand equity from refusing to sell people $15,000 purses.

Maybe Hermès is trying to step things up? My algorithm recently served up content from a July trip Hermès put on in Toulouse, France. Rozz posted a riveting reel of the excursion, reporting that Hermès put guests on a plane in Paris without telling them where they were going. They ended up in Toulouse where they experienced a dance show and a dinner at a long table facing the Canal du Midi. As waiters refilled wine glasses and courses decorated with flowers came and left the table, onto the canal rowed — er, was rowed — Hermès artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas. Standing on a boat with a sort of glowing moon, he said, “What makes us dream, what makes us hope…”

Emily in Paris couldn’t script this better.

“A Stand Against Influencers”

As pockets of the internet debate whether or not hating influencers is simply a way to hate women, Wimbledon has, according to ESPN, “taken a stand against influencers.”

The tennis tournament “will not have any accreditation category for influencers or content creators” following the US Open, where one went viral for shining her ring light on the court during a point. Another group was, per the New York Times, “loudly posing for a group photo in a luxury suite.” Even superstar Naomi Osaka weighed in, telling reporters, “I feel like it’s common courtesy to read up on the sport, especially the etiquette.” Wimbledon organizers will reserve the right to confiscate things like ring lights that might disrupt play. I’m not a sports person, but as a society it seems like we should agree that no live sporting event should be subjected to spectators’ ring lights.

However, is accrediting influencers to blame for the disruption? Or is it brands buying boxes and inviting them? Maybe tennis authorities also need tighter control on brands exploiting the tournaments for influencer relations and clout.

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