I recognized a lot of familiar faces this summer. That’s because their “work” had finally settled. The trend: Gained weight in quarantine. Fixed that with Ozempic. Fixed the haggard look with surgery.
I had to ask a pro. “Losing that characteristic youthful fullness in your face is endemic to these drugs because of the rapidity of the weight loss,” said Robert Jetter, Senior Lenox Hill Attending Plastic Surgeon (and teacher), who has his own office operating room on 75th and Park. “Lately, I am seeing patients with those effects secondary to these drugs.”
The solution? Facelift and fat injections, says Jetter. Widely considered the solution to so much more.
Lately, pharmacy marketing is working to eliminate the middleman. “Some of these semaglutide compounding pharmacies came to my office to tell us to prescribe their weight loss drugs,” Jetter told me. “But, that should be done under the care and supervision of a qualified internist.”
At least we saw the same faces — literally and figuratively — under the VIP tent Sunday, at the Longines Hampton Classic 5* Grand Prix, the glamorous conclusion to the 49th annual Hampton Classic Horse Show — and the summer season itself. You can’t buy a ticket, just a table. Those are reserved year after year, elaborately festooned, overflowing with flowers and food. On Sunday, hosts arrive at 8 AM to begin setting up. The final competition begins after 2 PM. It’s a long day … fueled by rosé (at least for me it is!).
It’s a short competition in the scheme of things. Most horse shows last a month. Wellington goes all season.
Robert Downey Jr., Donna Karan, Nicky Hilton, Molly Sims, Candace Bushnell, Peter Thomas Roth, Stacey Benders, Georgina Chapman, Katie Lee Biegel and fitness guru Melissa Wood Tepperberg were among the bold faces who attended the week-long event.
“Our Longines Hampton Grand Prix is the biggest defense and show jumping all year long, anywhere in the country,” Hampton Classic Press Chief Marty Bauman told me. He was there with longtime media representative Nancy Moon. “Not only is there $400,000 in prize money at stake, but the prestige and honor of becoming a Hampton Classic Grand Prix champion.
Diana Taylor holds court with Michael Bloomberg in support of his champion equestrian daughter, Georgina Bloomberg. In their front and center tables, champagne flows and friends abound. “Done working,” as he puts it, Bloomberg looked trim and relaxed.
“We had a great summer,” Taylor told me. “We were here. We traveled a bit. And we spent time with family, which was great.”
Speaking of family, what do Georgina’s sons call her? “Diana,” she replied, “or ‘hey you!’”
No diminutives for Taylor. In fact, impressive women like her are having a moment. “I hope, but not just because they’re women,” Taylor said. “Because they’re powerful people. A lot of times, the best person for the job is a woman. People are starting to realize that.”
Taylor has always worked to lift up women. “I supported the New York Women’s Foundation,” she said, “which raises money to help non-for-profits in New York City who advocate for women, especially their start up businesses. From there, I did micro finance, financial inclusion for women. Turns out, women are often a lot better at managing money and working than men are.”
Taylor’s a strong woman with a strong man. “It makes a lot of sense for powerful people to be with each other,” she said. “You can do really good things together. It makes for a very good relationship.”
Nor does it diminish femininity. “Not at all,” she replied. “I am who I am: a woman.”
She’s just not a horse woman. In all these years supporting Georgina, has she learned anything about horses? “NO,” she laughed. But watching is fun.”
There was plenty of passion for the sport in the tent — and the design skills to show it. Marsia Holzer always creates a horse-themed sculpture for the table she shares with follow equestrian pal Betsy Battle. “I think the decor should be about style and riding,” Marsia told me. She created the table competition about 15 years ago, often serving as judge “to encourage more equestrian themes.” It did not. But, at least Holzer sticks to topic.
“This year I made flower vases that look like miniature riding boots out of sheets of steel that I cut, bent and welded,” said the sculptress, welder and furniture designer.
Holzer started out creating stage outfits for the likes of Mick Jagger, Carly Simon, the Mamas and the Papas and Patti Scialfa and hung with Warhol. (“He often came to dinner and wrote in his diary that he liked my cooking.”). She’s been riding since she was five years old in England and competed in the Hunter Division (adult amateur) into her 70s.
“Have you seen the flowers frozen in big cubes of ice?” Marsia asked me, pointing towards the Lignelli Family first place table.
There we found Catherine Lignelli, who led its design collaboration with Christopher Snow and Missi Flowers. The family has a horse farm in Wellington. Daughters Alexa and Agatha rode champion at the Classic. Next week, Alexa will represent the USA in Youth Nations Cup in Belgium.
“The Hampton Classic is one of my family’s favorite shows,” Catherine told me. “My team loves coming here. Win or lose, it’s one of the few horse shows in the United States that really calls for pomp and circumstance.”
The ice cubes? “My oldest daughter Alexa is off to college this fall. Like so many mothers, I said, ‘I wish I could freeze time.’ The moment I said that, the (risky!) idea to put flowers in ice came to me. It was potentially Alexa’s last Junior Show, and I was feeling so nostalgic, I pulled out my wedding linens — which have not been used since I was married — for the table.”
Another die-hard equestrian, Sue Ellen Marder O’Connor, was at the Classic, every day from 7:15 AM to 5 PM, watching from one of the three Marders landscaping tables. Brother Charlie Marder does the landscaping for the show. Sue Ellen jokes he was a “reluctant participant in the horse business,” because when they were kids he emptied a jar of savings from his after school earnings to finance her first horse.
With that purchase, she began teaching riding in her early teens. Today, she lives near her sister’s (organic) horse farm in Virginia, still rides, and has championed several times in the Hunter Division. “I love the continuity at the Classic,” Sue Ellen told me, while trying to counteract all that sitting at Jeanette Davis Esposito’s Pilates Symmetry Studio. “I’ve been going from before it was the Classic. The same group of people come back year after year. It’s like a family.”
Sue Ellen, like so many, was part of the Tumbleweed Tuesday exodus. Back to the Virginia horse farm that breeds, houses and provides a caring retirement for horses who have aged out or been injured.
Wednesday in the Hamptons, turning left was no longer a blood sport, parking spots were no longer a deal to be made with G-d, and getting take out lobster salad at the Clamman didn’t require the patience of a Midwesterner.
Some are now done with their mammoth summer homes til May. For others, like their caretakers, the true vacation is just beginning.
