¡Qué Linda!

The Evangelista and Ronstadt of newsletters is back on the mic with a very alllllluring mag-world pioneer.

What would make the perfect women’s magazine? Juicy yarns, hot goss, big ideas, deeply personal examinations of women’s lives—and none of the advertiser obligations. Welcome to the Spread, where every week two editors read, listen, and watch it all, and deliver only the best to your inbox.

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Spreadfellows strange and familiar,  

We’re back and better than ever, thanks to so many of you making the jump to paid subscriberdom over the past week. (Payers: Keep an eye out for your first exclusive missive later this week.) If you missed the memo, you can catch up here and upgrade here. 

We gather you all here today, though, to point you toward our latest installment of Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!): A rollicking podcast interview with Linda Wells, the OG beauty EIC, who launched Allure in 1991 and ran it for 25 years, inventing an entire genre of journalism. Linda’s Allure roped together the latest configurations in body hair, breakthroughs in breast cancer research, what Jennifer Aniston really thought about that cut, and how to apply the exact cerulean Pat McGrath daubed on Gisele backstage at Dolce—all in one super-glossy, deeply researched place. (Sorry, were we waxing nostalgic about magazines, glorious magazines, again?) And Spreaderinas, after speaking with her, we are proud to say that Linda is spiritually one of us: This woman does not hold back, sharing tales from the front lines of the “Town Car era” of magazine editing: the legendary zero-interest Condé Nast mortgage, the publishers dangling Prada shopping trips—it’s all true! and yes, it flew right past us!—but also her own fraught relationship with body image, and what it was like to lose her job at the helm of the mag she built from the ground up. 

We had a blast with Linda, and we think you will, too. 

Listen right here, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars, 

Rachel & Maggie

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Here are seven ways to fill the Allure-shaped hole in your heart. (Yes, we do know that Allure, the brand, does technically still exist over at Condé Nast. Wells left in 2015 and the print product folded in 2022.)

1. Air Mail Look: Linda Wells’s current editorial jam launched last year over at Graydon Carter’s new house, where she tracks the beauty and wellness whims of the global elite with a wink. 

2. How Not to F*ck Up Your Face: Oprah’s former beauty director (and the Spread’s forever guiding light)

   Valerie Monroe
   solves beauty conundrums without sugarcoating. 

3. The Review of Beauty: Journalist

   Jessica DeFino
   has emerged as a post-glossy hero and “the woman the beauty industry fears,” with recommendations for what not to buy and reported riffs on industry trends. 

4. Rachel Strugatz, Puck: The former Business of Fashion beauty reporter has joined Puck as a correspondent, reporting on the nitty gritty of the $500B beauty industry. 

5. Hi Everyone: Who What Wear Founder

   Hillary Kerr
   ’s trusty newsletter is a product-recommendation goldmine. We can never thank her enough for our just-thick-enough post-Tretinoin moisturizer. 

6. The Vajenda: Known Gwyneth rival

   Dr. Jen Gunter
   dishes out women’s health news from a feminist—guns blazin’!—POV.  

7. Burnt Toast: In some ways the anti-beauty magazine you’ve long been looking for,

   Virginia Sole-Smith
   unflinchingly examines diet culture and our collective relationship with body image. 

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