Lilly Pulitzer

Just in time for summer, The Arbour is stocking up on our favorite brightly patterned accessories and gifts. Who better to provide these but Lilly Pulitzer??? As east coasters, Lilly was a mainstay in both my childhood in the 80s and Patti’s childhood in the 60s. For those west coast customers who may not have had the same experience, here is a little history of the fabulous Lilly Pulitzer.

A typical 20th century heiress, Lilly was born in New York to a mother who was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. She went to all of the right schools, including Miss Porter’s School with the Bouvier sisters. (Sidenote: Jackie would later wear one of the classic shifts in a Life magazine photo shoot.) However, Lilly broke the mold when she eloped in 1950 with Peter Pulitzer, the grandson of publisher Joseph Pulitzer. They moved to Palm Beach, Florida as any heiress would do and had three children: Peter, Liza and Minnie.

Lilly’s husband, Peter owned several orange groves and with the produce, Lilly decided to open a juice stand in Palm Beach. She found though that all of the juice squeezing was ruining her clothes, so her solution to camouflage the stains was asking her dressmaker to make her a simple shift out of brightly colored patterned fabric. This dress later became the famous “Classic Shift Dress” in her collection.

Soon she was getting more orders for dresses than juice allowing her to shift her focus to fashion design, founding her label in 1959. Who would have thought orange juice would have opened that door? She continued work on her label until 1984 when she retired. In 1993 however, she allowed the line to have somewhat of a rebirth and serves as a creative consultant.

At The Arbour we always look forward to the summer when we can order the Lilly paper products, cocktail napkins and this summer we have a girls watch, a few melamine plates and my new favorite, the “Queen of Green” grocery bag. I’ve already gotten a compliment on it at QFC. Come in and get your Lilly fix while it lasts!

Jen

Thank you to Wikipedia for the help on Lilly's bio....