party’s The far from OVER
It started in the Middletons’ garden shed and made them millions. Now their business is said to be in peril and laying off staff, but the family insist...
DISCRETION has always been the watchword of the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents. After a decade and a half in the public eye, Michael and Carole Middleton have become rather good at it.
Whether it is about their daughter the future Queen or their grandson the future King, inquiries are met with the same enigmatic smile and a polite shake of the head.
So it hardly surprising that they are being discreet about what is happening to their family business. With their silence, however, envious tongues are wagging. For over the past two days, reports have been circulating that Party Pieces, the mail order and online firm they started on the kitchen table three decades ago, is in trouble.
It is claimed half its staff have been shed, that others may be at risk and that there are fears for the company’s future. Under the headline ‘Party over, Carole’, one report said: ‘Kate’s mum axes staff as business struggles.’
The reality, I can reveal, is somewhat different. Far from contracting her business, Carole Middleton is intent on growing it and she is in talks with investors over plans to expand it.
But for the Middletons, trading is infinitely more complicated than for most small businesses. Any slip risks being magnified or exaggerated, impacting not just on the bottom line but also on their unique position as royal in-laws.
No one is more conscious of that than Carole. And it is why she has been so alive to ensuring the family can never be accused of exploiting their quasi-royal status for the sake of the family firm.
Had they done so, those invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham would long ago have dried up. But they have not, and Prince William has played a key role in ensuring that Mike and Carole, as he calls his in-laws, are not only part of his and Kate’s life but also of the Royal Family.
Paradoxically, Mrs Middleton’s determination not to be seen milking the royal connection has contributed to the success of Party Pieces. Her one rare attempt at promoting herself and the business in a magazine interview last Christmas was a study in reticence and an example of awkward publicity.
But it had the ring of authenticity as she spoke about why and how she launched her company and how all the children — Kate, Pippa and James — had helped.
In truth we learned more about her from what she didn’t say than from what she did.
WHAT it did, however, reveal was that behind her modest and unassuming face lay ambition, dedication and doggedness.
In the years since she began, Party Pieces has been transformed from a one-woman outfit supplying home-made goody bags to the parents of her children’s school friends into a dynamic, successful brand. Of course its association with the royals has helped. But it was established long before Prince William had clapped eyes on the Middletons’ elder daughter at St Andrews University.
And it has been reliably successful, providing enough money to send all three Middleton children to fee-paying Marlborough College, via prep schools and later university, holidays in Mustique, skiing trips to the Alps and even the leg of a modestly successful racehorse.
It has also bought them a spacious and comfortable wisteriaclad manor house in Bucklebury, Berkshire, and a Chelsea flat with no mortgage where all the children have lived at some time or another.
And it is from Party Pieces that everything springs, lifting the Middletons from relative financial modesty to multi-millionairedom, in turn propelling Kate into a new social sphere, which gave her the confidence and affluence to win a Prince.
Party Pieces was founded in 1987, taking the Middletons from their unassuming semi-detached house and their purely salaried existence — she was a flight attendant, he a British Airways dispatcher — to all this.
‘My memories of those early days are very vivid,’ Carole told Good Housekeeping magazine. ‘We worked out of a studio in the garden that was a glorified shed.’
For the first year business came through word of mouth at the school gate and playgroup. But her big break came when she used the children’s book company Red House Books to send out flyers. ‘We put out 10,000 leaflets, which gave a huge boost to our orders.’ Party Pieces was on its way and the garden shed was soon too small. After locating to a small start-up unit in Hungerford, they moved to a hamlet near their home in 1995. They have been at a converted barn at Child’s Court Farm ever since.
Although it was very much Carole’s idea — Mike didn’t join the firm for a couple of years — she insists it is a family enterprise.
All the children have worked for the business. ‘Catherine started the first Birthday brand, Pippa set up a blog, as we didn’t have one, James came up with the idea of personalised cakes and got them off the ground for us.
‘Because they all grew up with me working, Party Pieces has been very much part of our lives and what we talked about.’
So what is the truth about the rumours over Party Pieces and what about the claims that half the staff have been laid off?
It was reported that a publicity agent, a web designer and a search engine optimiser had been axed. It was also claimed that three warehouse staff had been laid off before Christmas.
In fact the firm employs more than 30 people and as one insider said: ‘Losing three is hardly half the staff. We’re very confident about the future.’
LAST night, Carole told a family friend: ‘Yes, a couple of people are leaving but this is our much-loved family business which is far from failing. All of the changes we are making are to help protect the business for the future.
‘We are in talks with some very exciting investors who believe in our plans to grow the business.’
The news effectively scotches suggestions that the couple might, in fact, be looking to sell the business and retire. ‘Over the years Carole has survived some pretty wretched snobbery over her business and over her modest upbringing but the fact is Party Pieces has provided her and her family with a fantastic life,’ says a friend.
‘She and Mike are not flashy but they are proud of their success.’
In many ways she represents everything that is good about opportunity in Britain. She took a risk with a small amount of capital and it paid off, not through luck but through sheer hard work.
Although there are no publicly available figures or company accounts to pore over — as a partnership they do not have to file any such information, it has been claimed the business is worth up to £30 million.
As to the rumours, a company spokesman said: ‘Party Pieces owes a duty of confidentially to its employees and cannot comment on speculation. We can confirm the business is currently working on an exciting development partnership, and the company’s structure is being reviewed to align with its financial targets.’
For her part, Carole says: ‘If you have a good idea and you have lots of energy and a supportive family, then I think just try it.’
It certainly worked for her.