However much you have made your peace with ageing, some birthdays inevitably hit harder than others. 32? Lovely. 45? Bring it on. 50? No, there must be some mistake. Even the most gung-ho people can balk at the realisation that they’re half a century old, a descriptor that sounds more suitable for an ancient ruin than a human being with all her own teeth and a gym membership.
When the person in question celebrated her 21st at The Viper Room (where she was serenaded by Michael Hutchence and Johnny Depp), her 34th at the Dorchester (just an 18 hour bender that night) and her 42nd with a weekend-long David Bowie-themed party at her Cotswolds home, approaching quinquagenarian status must feel even more surreal. No wonderKate Mossis feeling a soupcon of denial. “I’m not turning 50,” she told The Times in an interview last year, asked about her milestone birthday in January 2024. “No. I’m not thinking about it. I do not feel 50.”
But does anyone ‘feel 50’? What does 50 even feel like? For Kate, 50 is likely feeling pretty good. Benders are a thing of the past: she’s a wellness guru now, and has her successful Cosmoss empire to prove it. Founded in 2022, the brand sells £288 ‘Ritual Packages’, £125 ‘Sacred Mist’ perfume and £20 tea bags to well-heeled women who only keep their Tetley for the plumber. Kate’s body is now less of a dumping ground and more of a temple. Yes, she might still sunbathe, but only with caution and after judicious application of SPF. She’s more about moonbathing now, offset with yoga, ice baths, health retreats and bracing country walks.
If there’s one thing getting older tends to teach us, it’s that the candles on our birthday cake should have as much or little bearing on our lives, loves, career, style and attitude as we choose. Whether Kate still enjoys the odd tequila on the sly is no-one’s business but hers, but for many who grew up with her, Kate’s transition from “woo-hoo!” to “woo-woo” mirrors their own. Whether you have a wellness empire or not, the passage of time is likely to have made you refocus your energies on pursuits that don’t always involve a cocktail. Or at least, as many of them. By 50, your priorities tend to have changed. Mornings become too precious to nurse a hangover, and if you haven’t acquired a kid or two, you might have acquired a pet, whose schedule dictates your own almost as mercilessly.
Just as she doesn’t ‘feel 50’, nor does Kate ‘look 50’, too - not least because in 2024, it’s both reductive and futile to define what 50 looks like. It looks like what you want it to, whether that means embracing your grey or maintaining the hair colour of your youth. “Next question!” Kate shot back, asked in an interview whether she’d had Botox or filler. Whether you do or don’t is your decision and your business alone, something to admit or keep secret as you prefer.
Just as there’s no ‘right’ way to age, it should go without saying (but alas, still doesn’t) that there’s no ‘right’ way to dress in your 50th year. The reason so many women lose confidence in their wardrobes as they age is because society judges them so harshly. They don’t so much lose their taste as have their self-assurance whittled away by others’ unsolicited opinions on whether they should or shouldn’t wear a mini skirt. Which is precisely why Kate is so well-loved: as a model, she has confidence in spades, as well as the same innate sense of style and enviable wardrobe that has been enthralling fans ever since she started modelling as a teen. In a world crowded with influencers, she’s the OG, a woman with her own Topshop range (RIP), who’s been the face of every brand from Chanel to Burberry to Westwood to Saint Laurent. It’s a testament to her style credentials that she still more than holds her own, despite the multi-million follower heft of models, actresses and influencers a quarter of her age. Nobody wears a skinny jean, a black waistcoat or a biker jacket like Kate, or looks more at home in an Ossie Clarke dress or a 70s kaftan. A true chameleon, she has never slavishly followed trends, but wears what suits her, rejecting fads and fooleries like the boss she is.
Do I miss the Kate Moss that emerged bleary-eyed from her Claridge's suite after the legendary Beautiful and the Damned party she threw to mark her 30th? I miss her like I miss my own 30 year-old self: fondly, with a fug of regret that evaporates as swiftly as a smoke ring. For a generation lucky enough to have been young in the nineties, it would be particularly churlish to have regrets about getting older. Culturally and economically, it was a golden time to be young and alive. However she marks her half-century, Kate will no doubt be surrounded by family and friends who love her, raising a glass of something to the sky and, in the words of Dr Seuss, not crying because it’s over but smiling because it happened - and then some.