Fourteen years ago today was the royal moment that would go down in glamour history. When the about-to-be-wed Kate Middleton arrived at Westminster Abbey in a Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen confection of bridal loveliness, we all gasped.

It was a bona fide fashion milestone. Prince William’s bride resembled not just a royal princess, but a Hollywood star a la Grace Kelly. She was elegant, assured and impossibly glamorous – a standard bearer for British fashion and the women who toil in that industry.

How different to the image released today when the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in the Isle of Dull – sorry, Mull – to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary. Scratchy tweed. Button-up shirt. Sensible walking boots. Where, oh where, was the glamour?

On their itinerary are visits to a village hall, a ‘community hub’ and, wait for it, a croft where they will ‘help pick produce for the menu’ and ‘see the Hebridean sheep being farmed there’.

It’s not quite their sun-kissed honeymoon in the Seychelles, is it? I know the couple fell in love while at university in Scotland, but this all sounds like a drizzly field trip forced upon schoolchildren. Where’s the majesty in looking at sheep? Or visiting a village hall? It makes an episode of Countryfile sound action-packed.

On Day Two, the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay as they are known when north of the border will meet rangers from the Mull and Iona Ranger Service at the ‘Community Forest’.

Kate in a Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen dress on her wedding day 14 years ago today

There, they will join an early years group taking part in nature trails, den building and animal tracking. They will also announce more ‘community spaces’ in Mull as well as funding for rangers to protect its ‘stunning natural treasures’.

To which all I can ask is: seriously?

We know Kate loves nature, having posed next to trees on the family estate. While recovering from cancer, she has understandably found solace in fresh air and beauty – as demonstrated by the video of her and her family frolicking in Norfolk when she completed chemotherapy last September.

That footage may have evoked a fantastical, sepia-tinted vision of Enid Blyton-era England rather than a country of long NHS waiting lists and a cost of living crisis.

But, while whimsical, you couldn’t begrudge Kate. She looked chic, beautiful, on the mend – as she had when she made her first official appearance after her diagnosis at Trooping the Colour last June. Wearing her monochrome Jenny Packham hat and dress, she resembled yet another Hollywood star, Audrey Hepburn.

Her message was clear: all was well. Onlookers everywhere breathed a huge sigh of relief. The glamour queen was back – capable of eclipsing Hollywood royalty as she so patriotically did in her sequin-spangled Jenny Packham gown at the James Bond premiere in 2021.

But, in February, it emerged that details of the princess's clothes and accessories were no longer being released through official channels. She wanted to be known as a work horse, not a clothes horse – and it has gone downhill from there.

Wintry, old-fashioned maxi coats. Roll-neck jumpers. And – for a visit to a group of scouts in the Lake District earlier this month – a tweed bomber jacket and skinny jeans topped with a don’t-look-at-me baker boy hat, which even the normally sycophantic Vogue called ‘polarising’. She was doubtless comfy and warm, but hardly inspirational.

Kate wears a sequin-spangled Jenny Packham gown at the James Bond premiere in 2021

For her first official appearance after her diagnosis, she wore a monochrome Jenny Packham hat and dress at Trooping of the Colour last June

But she opted to wear a tweed bomber jacket and skinny jeans topped with a don’t-look-at-me baker boy hat on visit to the Lake District with a group of scouts earlier this month

Of course, a serious illness can make you re-evaluate what matters. Perhaps these days Kate feels fashion is frivolous. But, I’m afraid to say, looking fabulous is part of her job. Yes, she can kneel in comfy jeans encouraging children to scribble, or pretend to be interested in sheep, but her real role is to boost morale.

Doesn’t William look so much more statesmanlike in uniform or in the black suit he wore for the Pope’s funeral than in a bobbly jumper and jeans, which is his current off-duty go-to? In the diplomatic rulebook, don’t underestimate the power of glamour.

After all, there is no shame in chic – as the late Queen Elizabeth knew all too well. The then princess may have wanted to stick to tweed and gumboots while settling into married life with Prince Philip in 1947. But she knew she had a duty to inspire the country after the Second World War and dressed accordingly – in satin gowns, gloves and strings of pearls. She understood that, when it came to duty, it was all about the optics.

If the sort of itinerary planned for the Waleses in the Isle of Dull is all that is in store over the next few decades, no wonder Meghan swerved it.

I – like many – watched her Netflix show With Love, Meghan, for the glorious gardens, the stylish clothes, the plentiful platters, the sunshine. Yes, it’s unattainable – doubtless largely fictional – but fun and glam, too.

I don’t want to see Kate – our beautiful ambassadress – reduced to a dull, dreary, uninspiringly ordinary mother-of-three.

So next year, instead of a visit to Scotland for such a personal day in the calendar, why don’t the Waleses enjoy a sojourn in the British embassy in Paris instead? They can bask in the artistic glory of the Louvre before dining on Michelin-star steak frites rather than a globule of haggis.

Only the chippiest would begrudge them that joy. The couple have many decades of mind-numbing service ahead of them: shaking hands, waving, listening without yawning. We need more open-top Jags, more yachts, more gorgeous, unaffordable gowns for us peasants to swoon over. The world is dreary enough, so what’s the harm in a little glamour?

I wonder what the reasoning is behind making this kingdom’s most bankable stars so dull.

Perhaps a village hall is Kate’s idea of a great day out. But, given her once-frequent trips to Raffles night club, I struggle to believe it.