Party Pieces, the company born from a lack of tasteful tablescapes for Kate Middleton’s fifth birthday, is officially no longer a part of the Middleton family portfolio.
Founded by Carole and Michael Middleton in 1987, Party Pieces was severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Though the business announced its expansion to the US market last October, entrepreneur James Sinclair announced on his Instagram stories this week that he’d acquired the company.
Sinclair operates several businesses in the kids and party industry, including Rossi Ice Cream and the Teddy Tastic Bear Company, the acquiring company. He told the Daily Mail that he’d been speaking with Carole for about three months to set up the deal and that he’ll launch a spinoff line within Party Pieces called Crafty Pieces.
“She is an inspirational businesswoman, and she is very clever, intelligent and the Royal Family are fortunate to have her,” he said. “We will be marketing slime teddy bears and lots of hands-on things for children to play with and Carole was delighted with the ideas that we had.
“We both said the main thing was to get kids away from screens and we want to preserve the Party Pieces brand that she helped set up and she will still be available on the telephone for us.”
In an interview with SheerLuxe last year, Carole revealed the extent to which Party Pieces had been a family company, with her children Pippa Middleton, James Middleton, and Kate all contributing in the early days.
“Pippa wrote our ‘Party Times’ blog, James did the cakes when he first left school and Catherine developed our first birthday and baby category,” she said. “My husband and I were young and a little inexperienced, but very enthusiastic, so we didn’t worry too much.”
She said that only being able to find paper plates with clowns on them while planning Kate’s fifth birthday party led her to create the business.
“Party Pieces was literally born at our kitchen table, so I suppose the ‘big break’ moment came when I realized there were lots of other parents looking for more affordable and imaginative partyware, and that I had correctly identified a gap in the market for quality products that added something special,” she said. “It was so exciting knowing I had a business idea that could work.”
