The new adventures of Pippa
The party book wasn’t a runaway success but the future still looks bright for Brand Pippa, says Damian Whitworth.
ON A recent crisp Sunday morning, a walker out for a stroll in the farmlands around the village of Bucklebury in Berkshire caught sight of two women and a spaniel working their way up the side of a neighbouring field.
Their paths crossed and they exchanged pleasantries and admired the liveliness of the hound. The Duchess of Cambridge and her sister, Pippa Middleton (for it was they), were full of good cheer and strolled off happily. The walker was struck by how relaxed and content they were in each other’s company. Any suggestions that they had fallen out over Pippa’s book and the attention she received from writing it seemed false.
Reports this week that Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin, has backed out of plans to publish two sequels to Celebrate, Pippa’s book on how to entertain, have been firmly denied. ‘‘ Celebrate was a one- book deal,’’ the company says. ‘‘We feel bullish about this title as we had earned our advance with foreign rights and serial sales before we published.’’
Reports of a £400,000 (NZ$751,776) advance are understood to be wide of the mark, but the publisher will not get into figures. Sales of the book are approaching 40,000. That’s not disastrous – Danny Baker’s autobiography sold a similar number, as has Recipes from My Mother for My Daughter by Lisa Faulkner – but it’s not a smash hit and the book has been spotted selling at heavy discounts.
Rumour has it in publishing circles that another Pippa book project is being shopped around discreetly by a leading agent. It is not clear what the subject matter is (though one suggestion is weddings) or whether, like Celebrate, she would write it herself. But had the first book sold as Penguin hoped, there would have been no need to take it elsewhere.
At the launch of Celebrate in October, Pippa (like Nigella, she needs no surname) said she felt ‘‘really fortunate to be able to build a career as a writer’’.
That career appears to be hanging in the balance because the book was criticised for some of its advice. A spoof Twitter account, @pippatips, apes her style – yesterday’s tip: ‘‘ Keep your home litter-free by placing rubbish in bins or other waste receptacles like wastepaper baskets or refuse bags.’’
Although she did not give interviews to promote the book, she has since acknowledged that she has been ‘‘much teased’’ for it and gamely suggested that she might one day write a sequel and ‘‘call it Bottoms Up’’.
So what does Pippa do now? Life is rarely straightforward for the family of someone who marries a future king, but no family can have found being semidetached from the royal family as awkward as the Middletons. Diana, Princess of Wales, came from an aristocratic family and, though her brother, Earl Spencer, worked in television for several years, he knew he would take over the family estate. Her sisters lead discreet lives.
Michael and Carole Middleton have been criticised for appearing to cash in on their daughter’s royal status whenever their party planning business, Party Pieces, has stocked royal-related items. Their son, James, also runs a business, called Cake Kit Company. Three years ago, in an effort to publicise his company, he made a series of cakes recreating Hello! magazine covers. One of these featured an image of Princess Diana. Last month we learnt a little more about the Middleton family, courtesy of Pippa. In a column for The Spectator magazine, she left readers with the startling image of her father dressing up one Christmas Day in an inflatable sumo- wrestling outfit ( no wonder William and Kate opted to spend Christmas at chez Middleton).
Now, at 29, Pippa has to work out how to balance her ambitions with the realities of being the younger sister of the future queen. She’s not without options. She won a sports scholarship to Marlborough College, and her athleticism has taken her into the realm of extreme sports events. She has sailed the Atlantic, climbed Mont Blanc and taken part in the Vasaloppet crosscountry ski race in Sweden. She is in training for next month’s coast-to-coast race in New Zealand.
‘‘That’s a tough race, that’s pretty impressive,’’ Justine Curgenven, the renowned British sea kayaker and expedition leader, says. ‘‘ It’s not a namby- pamby trying- to- look- likeyou’re-tough race.’’
Pippa clearly enjoys outdoor life. Earlier this month it was reported that she had joined a wild boar hunt in Belgium with the grandsons of Belgium’s richest man, Albert Frere. And last year she went salmon fishing on the River Tweed and caught two grilse – the only member of her party to get a nibble. She reported that the men in her group
‘She’s got it made if she wants. Everyone wants to know what she’s doing.’ Justine Curgenven, renowned sea kayaker
were ‘‘visibly miffed’’.
She has also been spotted more than once on easyJet flights from Heathrow to Edinburgh with aristocratic university pals only too keen to whisk her off to their Lowland shooting estates and fishing lodges.
Jock Monteith, who has been leading top-end Scottish salmon fishing parties for more than 25 years, says it is not unusual for women to be more successful. ‘‘ Women don’t have that drive towards fishing, and salmon are very sensitive to that. Women are patient, stealthy and methodical. They are not trying to prove anything. Guys are driven by evil testosterone and sometimes rush the job.’’
He would welcome her if she wanted to try her hand at guiding on Highland rivers. ‘‘Scotland is screaming out for quality lady guides. There’s a dearth of good-looking women guides. She would be a big success if she got into this game.’’
Curgenven believes that the outdoor life could offer Pippa a lucrative career path, through books, articles and documentaries. ‘‘She’s got it made if she wants. Everyone wants to know what she’s doing. People would want to see what she looks like working hard and sweating.
‘‘She is in a privileged position. She might not think she is, because everyone is watching her and she might just want to get on with her life. But she has it easy if she wants to make money. A lot of people want to make a living out of adventure but it’s quite hard because the media is not that interested unless you are the fastest or the first and even then these days it has to be something special, or there has to be a disaster.’’
She would certainly not be short of companies queuing up to kit her out. Modalu, the handbag manufacturer, reported that sales rocketed from £10,000 a month to £500,000 after Pippa was photographed with one of its bags.
Any financial arrangement with designers that could be seen to be exploiting her royal links would be examined very closely by royal officials, but there is no doubting her potential value to brands. ‘‘For Pippa to walk around with a Launer handbag would no doubt lead to a great deal of exposure, crucially in the fashion press, as both the Middleton sisters are a constant fascination to fashion critics on a regular basis,’’ Gerald Bodmer, chief executive of Launer London, the accessories maker, says. The Queen carried Launer bags at the royal wedding and Diamond Jubilee and sales spiked dramatically afterwards.
‘‘There is no denying the appeal of the royal family, those who are connected with them and their effect on business,’’ Bodmer says. ‘‘Pippa is also seen by the younger consumer as an accessible and viable member of the royal family, so to be associated with her would lend the brand more of a kudos with a younger, more fashionsavvy audience. Pippa would no doubt be a great ambassador with both a domestic and international appeal.’’
Maybe she will stick with the family trade, and look to the potentially inviting market of the United States. David Tutera, the American event organiser whose clients have included Elton John and Jennifer Lopez, says the royal connection would appeal to clients and he would jump at a chance to work with her: ‘‘It would be a brilliant move done the right way with the right client.’’
There have been reports of US television networks showing an interest in hiring Pippa. Charles Spencer worked for NBC, as did Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who was employed as a special correspondent. Tutera, who has his own wedding planning show, says that would not be an easy gig.
‘‘You can have a great look, but as soon as you open your mouth you have to have an approachability and be connected to the viewer. In the States she is already up against the challenge of her accent, and the accent may come across as not being approachable.’’
One person I asked about Pippa’s plans said, half-jokingly: ‘‘Well, surely she’ll marry a duke, won’t she?’’
She shared a flat at university with the sons of two dukes, one of them George Percy, heir to the dukedom of Northumberland and Alnwick Castle, a 100,000- acre estate nicknamed the ‘‘Windsor of the North’’. The other was Ted Innes-Ker, son of the Duke of Roxburghe, who grew up in Floors Castle, in Scotland.
But she shows little sign of settling down. She dated Alex Loudon, an old Etonian and former England cricketer, for three years – on and off – until last year. Since then she has been linked to several wealthy men. She was seen in Paris at a ball thrown by Vicomte Arthur de Soultrait, the French fashion entrepreneur. In September, Andre Balazs, the 55-year-old divorced hotelier said to be worth US$300 million ( NZ$ 356m), flew her to his Sunset Beach hotel on Shelter Island, New York. The gossip columns have her stepping out with Tom Kingston, 34, a British financier who worked for Schroders private bank.
I’d like to see her knock Bear Grylls off his perch. Pippa loping across the Arctic tundra with a wolf pack at heel? Pippa building a bivouac out of the reeking remains of a lion kill? Pippa scratching together supper from the innards of an Amazon water snake? We’d all watch that, wouldn’t we?