Ozempic improvers v upgrade refuseniks
The midlife tribes of summer '25
With the Chelsea Flower Show behind us, the social season is officially in progress. And with it has come a whole new gesture for summer 2025: the MCM-DTs, or middle-class, midlife double take. In the last ten days, I’ve attended seven parties, arrival at which spurred the aforementioned MCM-DTs, or “’jaro (as in Mounjaro) jolt”. The exclamation: “Bloody hell, X has dropped 20 years!” will be followed by “Ye gods, Y has aged!” Then comes the realisation that the entire room / gallery / garden is a face-off between those who have coughed up for Benjamin Buttoning versus reality-clingers who now appear prematurely decrepit.
For, lo, as Britons re-emerge for their brief spell in the sun, the social scene has split into two camps during its months in hibernation. Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and the scores of other weight-loss inducing “semaglutides” have divided party-goers into two tribes. In the one corner, we have the self-consciously skinny who’ve had “help;” in the other, upgrade refuseniks now resembling their own grandparents.
Boomers look the same, Gen Z is stable, but Gen X and older Millennials are all over the shop. Visually, it’s less a case of the haves versus the have-nots, than the done versus the done-in. And witnessing this juxtaposition is proving as addictive as a pre-Ozempic Krispy Kremes. After initial disorientation, glam v grunge gawping is my new spectator sport.
On the one hand, we have Team Lean & Lifted. I’ve lost track of the euphemisms being deployed for “O drop,” users alluding to veganism, microbiome management, clean-eating, spirulina supplements, going sober, and “weird tummy trouble” for what is clearly chemical assistance. These men and women are not merely “on the pen” (injecting semaglutes), but have felt forced to tone up the resulting sag via Pilates and personal trainers, juice fasts and judicious keto. Others are rumoured to have ventured abroad for “winter sun”. Translation: tummy tucks.
Fix one side effect of ageing and others will loom more glaring, meaning that alongside the lard loss has come a flurry of hair transplants, state-of-the-art smiles and face lifts. These latter interventions may be “liquid,” using filler, or “endoscopic,” aka, the new-broom spin on wind tunnel. Laser facials, spenny face creams and a new generation of tinted moisturisers have compounded these midlife makeovers, with the result that affairs and divorce courts can only be pending.
One newly svelte vision, who has just turned 50, told me: “Ozempic is the first thing to make me feel as if I have control over my body since I had children. I haven’t even had any of the notorious downsides - no running to the loo. But, they don’t talk about the other side effect: lose the flab and you’ll want to fix your teeth, your face, your wardrobe – then, your marriage. It’s like painting the Forth Bridge, sort one part and the rest starts to look shabby.”
She continued: “I’ve gone from being a cheap date to one of those high-maintenance maniacs you read about. You save on food and drink, but spend a fortune on everything else. I realise all this sounds midlife crisis-esque, but - if it is a crisis - it’s a pretty benign one, being bored by my other half apart. My stats are incredible. I’m going to live forever – whether or not it’s with my husband. I pretend this is what I care about: the longevity thing; staying fit for future grandchildren. But, I just want to look amazing.” She does. They all do. But, they’ve also made everyone else look ancient.
Enter Team Shagged out & Schlumped, or “raw faces” as I have taken to thinking of them. During any other era, these individuals would look normal, their age, good for their years even. However, in a period of radical intervention, “normal” reads as “octogenarian-plus”. These are the Ozempic abstainers, sustained on an unreconstructed diet of gin and crisps, with bodies no amount of Spanx or tailoring can render shipshape. Where the needle-thin go clad in slip dresses and cut-off tops, so abstainers sport the kind of floral frocks even John Lewis no longer sells, the chaps’ linen suits drum-tight over paunches.
Sugar addicts, boozehounds, smokers, these diehards have tombstone teeth, daffodil in hue, emitting the toxic aroma of those who have never flossed and can’t start now for fear matters will veer Exorcist. They are the life and soul at 6.30pm, unsteady on their feet by 8pm, and incoherent after 9, ruddy-faced, spitting. Where they do still boast hair, these are silverbacks, frosty tops - platinum proper rather than platinum blonde.
Their complexions are “lived-in,” read mottled and creviced, their chins legion; SPF an acronym they fail to understand. Athlete’s foot has become athlete’s face. Skincare, make-up they deem “vain,” despite arguably its being a greater vanity to inflict their unadorned selves upon the world. As for the so-called “needle Nazis,” they despise them as the cheats and artificers they are. Petulantly, valiantly, they champion themselves as “au naturel”. (It helps that they’re never not viewing themselves sans beer goggles.)