Move over Kate, there's a new global cover girl

The new Mrs Clooney is going to provide hot competition for the Duchess of Cambridge.

How to adjust to the astonishing disappointment that George Clooney is just like any other man? Of course he's still better looking and sexier and more effortlessly alpha and richer and more engaged with humanitarian issues and has a house on Lake Como. But in one key respect he is true to type; he lied. He promised us (all of us, with the possible exception of a few cocktail waitresses) that he wouldn't ever get married.

And yet this week the 53-year-old Hollywood idol broke that vow when he made another, to Amal Alamuddin, his 36-year-old human rights lawyer bride.

Aside from the piqued question "What has she got that we don't?" (Answer: everything, and the legs of an impala), we must try our best to get along with her because that's what George would want. So let's try this perspective on for size: we've not lost a heart-throb; we've gained a new global cover girl. No, no, listen.

Alamuddin (I don't think any of us is ready to call her Mrs C at this early stage) is just the sort of woman we need to grace magazine covers and model couture frocks. This is not just because, in Darwinian terms, life is all about survival of the fittest - and she is most incontrovertibly the fittest - but because she is terribly clever, too.

So when our daughters say: "Mummy, who is that glamorous woman on the front of Vogue and why are you drawing a moustache on her?" We can reply: "This is a fiercely intelligent woman who worked very hard at school and excelled at university. She speaks lots of languages and is a leading international barrister and campaigns to end sexual violence in conflict and is a member of a multi-disciplinary team of experts set up by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She may be a complete hottie, but it was by virtue of her Rolls-Royce mind that she has captured the heart of the only man I ever truly loved and wanted to be with."

"But what about Daddy?"

"Oh, Daddy loves him too; especially in Ocean's Eleven, although The Monuments Men was rubbish."

But back to Alamuddin, and it's difficult to know where to start, so let's begin with her crowning glory: that lustrous, luxuriant cataract falling way past her shoulders.

The Duchess of Cambridge and perky sister Pippa may have been fêted by Tatler for possessing shiny "rich girls" tresses, but Lebanese Alamuddin's thick, swishy hair is in a league (an Arab league) of its own.

Glossier than a copy of Vanity Fair, hers are the sort of statement locks that cry: "I wake up like this! In my world there are no bad hair days, just good ones and better ones."

As finely boned as a thoroughbred, with shapely legs perfect for Prada and arms toned from toting designer bags, Alamuddin is, quite simply, really rather ravishing. Her classic-with-a-playful-twist dress sense only adds to the allure, so much so that most of us were puzzled we'd never heard of her before she dated Gorgeous George, who previously showed a marked preference for rather more pneumatic types.

She apparently topped a 2013 social media Tumblr poll of "London's hottest barristers", although as an alumnus of Oxford fluent in Arabic, French and English, and with a busy career, she has never courted publicity. But since the spotlight fell on her, sartorially speaking, she hasn't put a foot wrong.

Flawless monochrome by day, silky red dress for evening, Alamuddin has the perfect, slim figure from which expensive clothes hang like a (gay) designer's dream.

By the end of her courtship with George, her array of knockout ensembles had managed to outshine Julia Robert's Rodeo Drive spree in Pretty Woman (a film that women routinely forget is about dispiritingly low morals because the clothes are so aspirationally high-end).

Alamuddin is the daughter of a retired university professor father from a prominent Lebanese family and a journalist mother, and moved to London when she was two years old. She is effortlessly high-end. When she touched down in Milan, she was in black skinny jeans with a ripped knee, a fluorescent yellow T-shirt, black jacket and silver flats, yet managed to looked soignée carrying a large hat box through the arrivals lounge.

On Monday, the contents of said box emerged as she wore a fabulous brimmed hat to match the sensational cream palazzo pants suit she wore to Venice City Hall for the couple's R8500 civil ceremony, which followed on from Saturday's lavish wedding at the seven-star (no, me neither) Aman Hotel overlooking the Grand Canal.

The picture rights to her wedding gown, by Oscar de la Renta, were sold to People magazine (Really? How trashy!) with the fee going to a charity of their choice. (Of course! How philanthropic!)

But the day after, the bride appeared in a florally embellished white lace Giambattista Valli dress that - for once - divided fashion commentators. Some disparaged it as a "lampshade". Others observed that its asymmetry and thigh-skimming length was inappropriate for climbing in and out of water taxis.

Then again, Alamuddin has enviably slim thighs, is usually the smartest person in any room and is married to George Clooney, so what does she care?

And therein lies the reason why this girl might oust the Duchess of Cambridge in fashion editors' eyes. Not only is her dress sense more daring - Dolce & Gabbana stripes, Alexander McQueen hand-printed silk - but she is unfettered by expectation. By comparison, Kate is careful never to wear anything too flashy, expensive or outré, and, in these straitened times, even gains a certain downbeat civil list kudos for re-wearing outfits.

Alamuddin, as very much her own woman in the corporate world and with an income to match, has nothing to prove and is unhampered by protocol, or indeed price. Also - and Pippa Middleton would do well to note - she has a sister, Tala, who was "confidante" at the wedding, a term used instead of the rather dowdy "maid of honour", and is another very striking brunette.

But let it not be said or implied that Alamuddin is just a show pony. Her husband has already acknowledged she is cleverer than he is, which all women would agree is an auspicious starting point in a relationship.

Both care passionately about human rights causes; and if, as the bride's father announced in his speech, now is the time for babies, then we must brace ourselves for more heartbreak. If there is one thing more irresistible than crinkly-eyed George, it would be crinkly-eyed George cradling a baby.

But until then, we have that impossibly sweet sepia snapshot of the happy couple goofing around, which was given to every guest (Bono, Emily Blunt, Anna Wintour, Matt Damon, Bill Murray et al) who attended their star-studded wedding.

It's a photograph that is the very antithesis of the glitz and ritz of the wedding weekend, which was so enjoyable to watch from afar.

Just two people in love, being a bit silly. He's biting her hat, she is grinning. And it makes me - I can't believe I'm saying this - wish them a lifetime of happiness together.