Pippa goes global: The very lucrative rise and rise of Her Royal Hotness (and that unforgettable derriere)

Her Royal Hotness: Pippa Middleton, pictured here at the 2011 French Open, has been inundated with offers of work

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge might be planning their first big tour, to the wilds of Canada followed by Los Angeles.



But wait — someone else has sneaked in front of them at check-in at Heathrow and grabbed all the attention.

Her Royal Hotness is on tour already.

Pippa Middleton’s pitstops in European capitals, accompanied by handsome companions and spanking new High Street togs, have been just as photogenic as her McQueen-clad derriere sashaying down the Abbey aisle in her sister’s wake.

Of course, from the moment she nearly crashed Twitter on the Royal Wedding day, Pippa has become a global celebrity in an age where having a talent isn’t a prerequisite for fame (see Cheryl Cole).



She has been inundated with offers of every conceivable kind, some unprintable. Those who know her are in no doubt that she is revelling in the attention, and intends to use it to her best advantage.



‘She is the most socially ambitious person I have ever come across,’ said one acquaintance, ‘and one of the most vivacious.’

And while she weighs up job offers, aristocratic suitors are lining up, handbags are being renamed after her, and she has her sights set on becoming a party planning entrepreneur.

And given the fact she is a publicity magnet, has a bulging contacts book, determination and drive, only a fool would think she wouldn’t succeed.

This week, it was Paris’s turn for a taste of that almost-Royal ‘It’ magic, because Pippa couldn’t resist the lure of a tennis freebie.



At the French Open, in a low-cut Zara dress and big Gucci shades — think Jackie O meets Julia Roberts at the polo in Pretty Woman — Pippa looked poised in the stands, and the actual tennis match lost its grip on the crowd.

The sponsor of the Roland Garros tournament, Peugeot, couldn’t believe its luck.



Marketing director and great- great-grandson of one of the founders, Xavier Peugeot, got so overexcited he looked like he was going to faint, and ‘presented her with a book charting the 200-year history of the brand’ which she accepted coyly before presumably leaving it under her seat on Eurostar.



Networking: Pippa Middleton with Peugeot's director of marketing Xavier Peugeot (left) at the 2011 French Open

That night Pippa could be found at a fashionable restaurant, Le Cinq Mars, and then at a club, Montana (a Kate Moss favourite, based on New York’s Studio 54), until 2am with three companions, one of whom the Mail can reveal is a well-connected, titled entrepreneur, and therefore perfect Pippa material.



He is the Vicomte Arthur de Soultrait, and he has a smart flat on the rue de Varenne in the 7th Arrondissement where Pippa stayed.



This exquisitely-named young French aristocrat comes with a family chateau, a love of hunting and shooting and a brand named after himself.

‘Vicomte A’ sells brightly coloured preppy clothing and sportswear (upmarket Jack Wills or youthful Ralph Lauren) from Palm Beach to Barcelona via St Tropez, although he’s not yet 30.



He’s designing the ties for the French Olympic team in 2012. Vicomte A’s slogan: ‘L’Instinct Chic.’ All of which means that his pink jeans and beard can be overlooked.

'Unforgettable derriere': THAT dress that sent Twitter into meltdown



A couple of weekends ago it was another city, and another young Lord.



It was Madrid’s turn for a Pippa stopover, with some girlfriends and the future Duke of Northumberland, her one-time Edinburgh flatmate George Percy (rumours of a university romance are inaccurate, according to friends).



He took the oars on the city’s boating lake while Pippa fetchingly dragged her hand in the water.

George, a titled entrepreneur and old friend (his castle, Alnwick in Northumberland, is much bigger and older than Arthur’s chateau) has even asked Pippa to do lobbying work for his new geothermal energy company, one part-time offer she is said to have accepted.

He jumped the queue.



Chat show queens: Oprah Winfrey (left) and Barbara Walters (right) want to make Pippa TV royalty by giving her a chat show



Although Fox might have returned Cheryl Cole after realising it didn’t have a clue who she was, U.S. television networks have no such problem with this power brunette.



Broadcasting doyennes Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey are reported to be slugging it out to make the highest offer for Pippa to host her own chat show.

Never mind that neither of them has ever heard her speak — if she sounds anything like Kate she should manage fine, a public school drawl being more intelligible than pure Geordie.

Barbara Walters, according to a source, thinks Pippa’s ‘sassy, young and gorgeous’, and that ratings would soar.



Meanwhile, even U.S. television’s biggest name, Oprah Winfrey, is said to want her for her Oprah Winfrey Network channel.

Unfortunately for America, there’s no sign she’s interested in these supposed offers, and given her social set, the entrepreneurial route is much more likely.

Family affair: Carole and Michael Middleton run the Party Pieces company, which Pippa has promised to work for

Like her elder sister, Pippa has the power to influence fashion. In fact she has already gone one better than Kate and had a handbag line named after her (A privilege usually reserved for the likes of Jane Birkin and Grace Kelly, or at least Alexa Chung).



British company Modalu was so thrilled she had bought its ‘Bristol’ bag in more than one colour that it renamed the bag the Pippa, and extended it to a range including a purse.



The first Pippa bag cost £169, a steal for an It-bag (they are usually £600, minimum). ‘Simple, graceful, timeless classics,’ says the grateful brand. Quite so.

Even French websites and weekly magazines are following Pippa’s style and showing their readers how to ape it.



Such praise is even rarer for an English girl than it is for an English restaurant (although it has been said that part of the Middleton sisters’ charm is that they dress like French girls, being more elegant than edgy).

Competitive: Pippa Middleton is said to be a keen tennis player and 'hates to lose'

Luckily, given all the gallivanting, Pippa is very close to her boss at the party planning firm Table Talk, where she still works three days a week.



She ingeniously managed to get said boss, JoJo Browner, who is something of a mentor to her, the gig of organising the evening party of the Royal Wedding (although their plans for disco balls were said to have put Palace noses out of joint at the time).

And Browner must know the value of the publicity Pippa brings to her company.

Sources say, however, that her salary there, which includes ‘commission’ on the events she brings in (who knows how much for the Buckingham Palace bash — Prince Charles is said to have footed the bill for the night) is not enough to fund the lifestyle of a jet-setting Chelsea princess.



So just like pre-marriage Kate, Pippa is subsidised by her parents. Hence the desire to run her own business: her current income and lifestyle do not match up as yet.

No wonder the odd freebie (like the French Open) draws her in. Tennis in particular is irresistible to Pippa, as she herself is a competitive and accomplished player (‘she hates losing,’ says a friend).

She won a sports scholarship to Marlborough College and although she has put her trim figure down to pilates, today she is said to be competing in a triathalon with friends (That’s running, swimming, and bicycling. She entered at Blenheim in 2009 and is a formidable sprinter).



The big stage: Pippa Middleton and Prince Harry walk down the aisle for the royal wedding

To be fair to Pippa, while she has been inundated with offers and could probably live a wholly sponsored, practically free, life — most marketers would pay her to wear, drive, or attend anything — she has been careful to insist on paying rather than taking or borrowing. (Shoe designer Aruna Seth, who made her silver strappy sandals for her evening party at the wedding, tried to ‘gift’ them to her, and was refused.)

But she still flits around town in a black BMW convertible, courtesy of her parents, and lives, when in London, off the King’s Road in Chelsea in a flat with brother James bought by Michael and Carole in cash for £750,000.

Although willing to bankroll their children, one friend says the Middleton parents aren’t necessarily as cash rich as they might seem at first, adding: ‘Ever since the wedding, Pippa has had a flood of job offers, including working for the Percy family and ventures controlled by the Rothschilds, but has been advised by the Palace that she can’t be seen to be cashing on the royal connection.’

Under scrutiny: The Royals are said to be keeping an eye on the Middleton business empire so that no attempt is made to cash in on their regal connections

The Palace PR machine is attempting to keep a close eye on the Middleton family business ventures.



James, for example, was stopped from opening a cake shop on the King’s Road because 'Kate was involved.’

Whatever Pippa or Kate do now is likely to be off the back of their parents’ firm — ‘they are a very cocoon-like family, they all huddle together’, says a friend — yet it will be hard to escape the fact that they will be seen as trading off the royal link without which no one would have heard of them.

For a nascent party planner, there can be no better calling card than being the sister of the future Queen. Why would an oligarch, or aspirational host of any kind, go anywhere else?

‘Pippa has promised her parents she will work for them as much as possible to help pay back their generosity to her and develop Party Times, the arm of the Party Pieces company she wants to evolve into a full-on party organising company like Table Talk.'

‘Pippa has promised her parents she will work for them as much as possible to help pay back their generosity to her and develop Party Times, the arm of the Party Pieces company she wants to evolve into a full-on party organising company like Table Talk.

‘Table Talk is a learning curve for her so she can take that knowledge and put it into the family business,’ adds the friend.

The Party Times is just an online magazine, but Pippa believes she can turn it into an events business with her experience and connections; she is clever enough to know her worth now, and wants to capitalise on it.

‘The Middletons have a small mortgage on their house and they did plan on moving [they looked at a manor house once lived in by Camilla] but they can’t afford it right now,’ the friend continues.

‘They have said they are going to have to wait, due to how much they have spent in the past two years.

‘They are taking on new work for Party Pieces and are really focused on building the family business to an even higher earning capacity so they can sustain their lifestyle.



'I think Michael is quite stressed about it, but Carole beavers on. It’s causing quite a bit of tension in the household.’

Can you Beliebe it?: The Middletons have signed a contract to market Justin Bieber merchandise in the UK

And certainly they seem to be in expansion mode. They are said to have been deluged with orders from the U.S. since the wedding and — as the Mail revealed this week — have just signed a contract to market Justin Bieber merchandise in the UK.

The teen hero may have been swayed by his admiration for the Middleton girls, which he tweeted (along with half the world) during the wedding. No one turns down the Middletons now.

And what of Pippa’s boyfriend, square-jawed, good-looking former county cricketer Alex Loudon, who hasn’t been seen much of late?



Certainly it was very much ‘on’ with him around the time of the wedding, which he attended, along with Kate’s confirmation in March, although he has definitely been keeping a low profile since then.

He is very well-liked and friends hope it will last, with one saying ‘he is a thoughtful, measured person. Bright, talented — both in sport and business. He is a decent chap and is bound to be a success.’

Many thought her sudden fame and army of new admirers would mean Loudon would no longer be enough of a catch for the ambitious Miss Middleton Junior, but the run of European mini-breaks without him might have a wholesome and reasonable explanation: Alex still likes to play a lot of cricket in season, particularly for the Eton Ramblers (the school’s old boys’ team).

For his part, this Kent-raised friend of Prince William, now with a perch in the City, has told friends he thinks Pippa is ‘The One’, and there were rumours of an imminent engagement last month.

Loudon might be advised to think about it or hold back on the cricketing weekends, as many a young man has been ditched for his love of sport.

