Pink Princess and wannabe fashion designer Maria Chiara rocks DIY dress in Cannes

She has one of the most extravagant titles in Europe: Princess Maria Chiara of Bourbon Two Sicilies.

Now the Italian ‘It girl’ wants the outfits to match. The 19-year-old princess, who partied with Prince Michael of Kent on the French Riviera last summer, plans to become a fashion designer.

And she wore one of her own creations to the Better World Gala Dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes.

“I made it myself,” she says about the pink dress. ‘I always love designing and I think one day I want to start my own brand.

“But I made this one together with a friend, so I’m really happy to be wearing it for the first time tonight.”

How will Theresa May be remembered? For leading the Tories to their lowest ever vote share – 9 percent in the 2019 European elections?

Or aiming for net zero emissions by 2050, indifferent to the views of those including innovator Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who points out that an electric car ‘doesn’t do what you want a car to do’?

Too bad for the Tory MPs. They have been asked this week by the 1922 Committee to raise £20 to buy a farewell gift to May, who has announced she is resigning.

“There will be quite a few,” I am told. Just bickering?

Cherie imposes the law on her sons

Cherie Blair pursued a career in politics in the 1980s until she gave it up in favor of law as Tony became Prime Minister.

Now she has told her two eldest sons that they must be willing to make sacrifices for their wives’ careers.

“I said to them, ‘Will there come a time when you would take a step back in your career so she can shine, or will you always expect her to do that for you?’ ‘

At a Cherie Blair Foundation for Women event in London, she says of Hillary Clinton, whom she was due to meet yesterday: “She is a wonderful woman.”

To laughs, she adds that Bill Clinton’s long-suffering husband is “a very understanding woman.”

Bespectacled documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux, 53, became an unlikely sensation on video-sharing app TikTok in 2022 when a cringe-inducing clip of him performing a rap known as Jiggle Jiggle “went viral” and attracted a billion views.

And it seems to have boosted his bank balance.

Figures from Blobfish Ltd, one of three companies into which he invests his income, show he made £1 million in profits last year.

John Cleese avoided having his picture taken with fans during the first night of Fawlty Towers: The Play in the West End.

“I don’t like selfies,” says the comedian, 84. “When people of my generation take a selfie with someone, it suggests that you are in a relationship with them.”

The Monty Python star was not joined by Connie Booth, with whom he wrote Fawlty Towers in the 1970s.

“I would like to thank dear Connie Booth, one of my ex-wives. . . the first,” he says.

“The dear woman is so shy and modest that she is not here tonight, but I want you to give her a round of applause.”

Maybe she just couldn’t face Cleese?

Children’s book author Katherine Rundell, who was named author of the year at the British Book Awards this week, is in danger of biting the hand that feeds her.

“Kids can be real losers,” says the author of Impossible Creatures.

Rundell, 37, who has no children, added cautiously, “But I also think they have such a capacity that we don’t always say hello. . . They have such a profound sense of justice – and I’m not particularly romantic when it comes to children.’

That is obvious.

Chaplin deserves a sequel, does his granddaughter think?

Could we soon see Charlie Chaplin donning his bowler hat and twirling his cane again, half a century after his death?

I ask because his granddaughter Kiera Chaplin would like to see the movie star brought back to life with the help of artificial intelligence.

“It’s pretty cool if you can bring it back to life with some kind of virtual reality or hologram,” she told me in Cannes.

But the model and actress, 41, admits other members of her family may not welcome the idea.

“Maybe my father and his siblings don’t like it very much,” she says of her father, Eugene Chaplin, Charlie’s son.