Gifts and novelties, then the carnival trade.

Oriental Trading began in Nebraska in the early 1930s. The company’s own history page, archived in 2017, says it was founded in 1932 in Omaha, Nebraska, by Harry Watanabe, a Japanese immigrant, as a wholesale provider of novelties and gifts. The New York Times gave the same founder, city and year in November 2012, describing Watanabe as finding a niche selling Kewpie dolls and other trinkets through local stores and carnivals. English Wikipedia says the business started as a gift shop and expanded into a group of shops in the Midwest.

The war years reshaped it. Wikipedia says that during the Second World War, with restrictions on imports from Japan, the company shrank back to its Omaha base, and that Watanabe bought a ceramic shop which made Kewpie dolls and other ceramic items. The company tells a similar story in its own words: it says that about ten years after its founding the purchase of a ceramics factory let it place greater emphasis on value-priced toys, and that it became a supplier to the U.S. carnival trade.

Catalogues came next, though the sources differ on the date. The company says it introduced its catalogue in 1954, which made ordering simpler and drove growth over the following two decades. Wikipedia says the company resumed imports from Japan in 1954, was a carnival supplier, and launched its catalogue in 1956.

From carnival stalls to classrooms and churches.

The second generation changed the audience. Wikipedia says Harry Watanabe’s son, Terrance (Terry) Watanabe, became president in 1977, and that the focus shifted from carnivals to party goods for churches, schools, retailers and individuals. The New York Times wrote in 2012 that Terry Watanabe expanded the business by building up the catalogue operation and drawing in direct sales to churches and schools. The company’s history page says that by 1977 it was using direct mail to reach schools, teachers, retailers and businesses beyond the carnival operators it had served before.

The company dates several further steps to the following decades. It says a toll-free telephone number and seasonal catalogues brought continued growth through the 1980s, that it added a warehouse to keep up with demand, and that it created Fun Express, a commercial sales division serving larger business clients. It says orientaltrading.com launched in the late 1990s, and that in 2005 it broke ground on a fulfilment centre in La Vista, Nebraska.

Berkshire Hathaway’s press release of 2 November 2012 describes Oriental Trading as a direct retailer of value-priced party supplies, arts and crafts, school supplies, toys and novelties, selling through its website and catalogues to individuals, teachers, schools, churches, businesses and not-for-profit organisations. The release’s company boilerplate names pink flamingos, wedding favours, holiday decorations, beading supplies and crafts among its wares, and ends with the line that Oriental Trading “makes the world more fun”. The same release notes that the company had been featured that year on the CBS reality series Undercover Boss; Wikipedia dates the episode to 10 March 2012.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make or sell the things people buy for a celebration: paper plates and napkins, balloons, banners, tableware, decorations and the catalogues and shops that bring them together. Party-supply brands sit at many different points in the trade, from small design studios that print their own papers to wholesale makers and national retail chains, and a single name can turn up on a supermarket shelf, in a mail-order catalogue and on a party table at home.

A party brand’s identity is usually carried less by one product than by colour, pattern and a recognisable name, because the company behind it may have changed hands, moved its production or widened its range far beyond where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its goods are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its goods are made and how its look has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Private equity, Chapter 11, then Berkshire Hathaway.

The family era ended in 2000. The New York Times reported in 2012 that Terry Watanabe sold Oriental Trading to the private equity firm Brentwood Associates that year, and that six years later Brentwood sold it to The Carlyle Group. Reuters reported the same year that Carlyle had bought most of the company from Brentwood in 2006. Reuters also reported that Oriental Trading filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August 2010, allowing creditors to take it over, and that by 2012 it was owned by a group of financial institutions including KKR. Wikipedia says the company continued to operate normally during the bankruptcy process.

A buyer from its home city followed. Berkshire Hathaway announced on 2 November 2012, in a release datelined Omaha, that it would acquire Omaha-based Oriental Trading Company, with the transaction expected to close by the end of that month. In the release, Warren Buffett said the company had seen several changes of ownership in the past but now had “a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway”, and spoke of the team’s “quest to make the world more fun”. Berkshire Hathaway has owned Oriental Trading since 2012, and an archived 2025 version of Berkshire’s subsidiary list still includes the company.

Under Berkshire the business added specialist sister brands. The company’s history page says Oriental Trading acquired MindWare Holdings in 2013, describing MindWare as a manufacturer, wholesaler and direct retailer of “brainy toys for kids of all ages”, and acquired SmileMakers, a direct retailer of patient giveaways for dentists and doctors, in 2014. Wikipedia cites Business Wire releases dated June 2013 and February 2014 for the two deals. The core offer still runs through catalogues and websites aimed at families, teachers, churches, businesses and charities.

For a design guide, Oriental Trading shows how a catalogue company builds identity through abundance and tone rather than a single hero product: bright, friendly, value-led pages for party favours, crafts and classroom supplies, held together by a name that dates from its 1930s import trade. Compare the party-goods maker in our Unique brand guidelines and the American party-supply chain in our Party City brand guidelines. For this guide we use catalogue blue, flamingo pink and craft green with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Oriental Trading’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.