About five years ago, there was much tabloid excitement at rumours of a budding email romance between Prince William, who was in those days a rather handsome young man with a lovely head of blond hair, and Britney Spears, who was in those days a phenomenally successful young popstrel with equally lovely blond locks.
What a difference a few years have made. Britney is bald; William not far behind. And instead of being accompanied by a miniskirted pin-up, the heir to the throne has by his side a girl in longer-length tweed. It's a funny old world.
The photographs of William and Kate at Cheltenham serve to back up two of my most unshakeable sartorial prejudices: first, that calf-length skirts should be banned by law; and second, that posh people should never wear sunglasses because they always get them horribly wrong.
They are also an undoubted setback in the royal family's long-running campaign to update their public image. William is 24; Kate is 25. Normal people their age do not wear tweed hacking jackets or buttoned-up longer-length skirt suits on fun days out. Fact.
William has never been exactly fashion forward, but he now seems positively fashion-backward. You can't wear a shirt and tie and jumper and jacket: the jumper kills dead all the muscularity of the suit and tie, while the suit and tie kill the casualness of the jumper, so you end up looking stuffy and emasculated.
Who should take the blame for Kate's look? By all accounts she has, despite the much-publicised flirtation with Topshop, long had tendencies towards lamb-dressed-as-mutton. Last year she wore a tailored tweed coat by Fulham designer Katherine Hooker to Cheltenham - livened up on that occasion by a controversial mink hat - so fingers are likely to point in that direction.
More intriguing is the evident influence of Camilla. Kate's matronly dog-walking tweeds and unreconstructed-Sloane shirt collar are more in keeping with the wardrobe of Charles's current wife than that of the glamourpuss William's mother had become by the time of her death. Perhaps the publicity-shy Kate has found a smart way of avoiding becoming the new Diana - by becoming the new Camilla instead.
