I still remember when the first Lilly Pulitzer store opened in my town. I was 16 years old, and I had never heard of Lilly, but I was enthralled by this new shop. It was like a little ray of sunshine surrounded by the dreary, drab, khaki-colored window displays of our local outdoor mall. The neon pink, green, and orange wallpaper glowed through the windows, beckoning me in. I pulled open the white and glass double doors, and I felt like I had landed in Oz after living my whole life on a sepia farm in Kansas.
I fell in love with the bright, summery colors, vibrant prints, and adorable 60s silhouettes immediately. As I gently caressed dress after dress, each one more beautiful than the last, I realized a small problem -they were quite a bit out of my budget. I left the store empty handed that day, but with a new life goal. I didn’t just want a fulfilling career, a house in the suburbs, a cat, a dog, and a family -I wanted a closet full of Lilly! Every time I walked by the store, I’d stare longingly in the windows dreaming of the day I could have dresses that pretty.
By the time I was in college, my obsession with all things Lilly had grown quite a bit. I found a shop near my college and tried on dresses whenever I could. I perused the sales racks and picked up small accessories like trays and wristlets. Finally, after a nightmare of a semester during my junior year, I decided I had earned a nice dress. So I went to the local shop with my budget in mind, stacked about 16 dresses in my arms, and headed to the fitting room.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Lilly Pulitzer fitting room, but they are magical places. The lighting is perfection, and the wallpaper bounces of your skin and gives you a glow that makes you look like you just stepped off the beach. As I tried on dress after dress, each one more beautiful than the last, I wondered how I could ever choose just one. It was like being asked to choose only one dessert from my grandparents’ table at Christmas. Did I pick the rocky road? The biscotti? The cannoli? At Grandma’s, the choice was easy -just get one of everything! But this was not an option here, and as I neared the bottom of the pile, I became more and more anxious. Leave it to me to make buying myself a present a source of stress. But then, I reached the last dress of the stack, the strapless Blossom dress in Hotty Pink First Impressions. The pattern was my favorite in the entire pile. Swirls of the brightest pink roses and green leaves danced on a background the color of the most perfect spring sky. As I pulled the dress on, I noticed that even the lace at the bottom of the lining was woven to read “Lilly” in white and gold. I struggled to zip the strapless, twisting around like an owl, and then I looked in the mirror. My choice had been made for me. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever worn. The A-line cut cinched perfectly at my waist and flared over my hips. The colors bounced off my face, erasing the dark shadows caused by a semester of stress, tears, and heartbreak. I left the store, cute, patterned shopping bag in hand, feeling confident and content for the first time in months.
The dress sat in my closet through finals week, a welcome pop of color among the various shades of black and grey that had become my unofficial uniform after 3 years of college just outside NYC. It was carefully transported home from my dorm after the last exam, and earned a place of honor on the back of my bedroom door. I looked at it all the time wondering when I would have an excuse to wear it. I finally had one a month later at my brother’s high school graduation, and after the ceremony was over and we had gone back home, I was so sad to take it off. I loved the feeling of wearing that dress. It made me feel like I glowed. I felt beautiful and confident and ready to take on the world.
Over the next year, my Lilly collection grew. First, the Lilly store in my town closed down over the summer and had a fantastic sale, so I picked up a few pieces. I saved up for a dress for my college’s senior week. My parents treated me to one as a graduation present. I was so proud of that dress that I sat in my assigned seat during the seemingly endless ceremony with my gown unzipped and off my shoulders. The second we tossed our caps in the air, that ugly trash bag of a graduation gown was balled up and thrown to my brother so I could let that dress out of it’s drab confinement.
That summer, I discovered the After Party Sale, or APS, as those as obsessed as I am call it. Here’s the thing: Lilly hardly ever goes on sale. Yes, you can generally find a few pieces on a sale rack here and there, but for the most part, everything is full price all the time. However, at the end of the summer and immediately following the holidays each year, Lilly launches the most amazing sale ever. Dresses that are normally $269 are marked down to $69. Shirts that are normally $64 are $18. All those free gifts with purchase that I would never spend enough to get are on sale too. The markdowns are so extreme that the website even jokingly advises customers to take the day off from work. I’ve never gone that far, but when the sale falls during summer break, it’s such a relief! And there’s also the added pressure of a virtual queue. At precisely 8AM EST, the sale goes live and you’re put in a virtual line. Your number is always something insane, last time I was something like 69,752. The numbers slowly tick down, the wait drops from 2 hours to 20 minutes, and then you’re in! It’s a mad scramble to stay within budget, find items in your size, and complete the transaction before the site inevitably crashes or some other customer swipes the dress you wanted, but it’s worth it. The adrenaline rush I get from shopping this sale is reminds me of selecting my courses during my assigned 15-minute window on registration day at college. And being a math nerd and obsessive bargain shopper, I also set a percentage goal -I like to get all of my items for at most 40% of their original total cost. My Lilly collection quickly grew from a few items to a substantial chunk of my closest.
In 2015, Lilly announced a collaboration with Target. Two of my favorite things in the world were coming together, and the pieces were going to be affordable! There were two options to shop the collection: stay up super late to shop online when the collection dropped or wake up super early to shop at Target. As a teacher, I hadn’t been able to stay up past 11 or wake up after 7 in about 5 years, so I made plans to shop the sale in person. At this point, Andrew and I had been dating for less than a year, and he decided to come with me. So at 6:30AM on a Sunday, we arrived outside our local Target to take our spot in a line of (mostly) women already 1/4 of the way down the building. We all chatted excitedly in line about the collection, and then, when the doors finally opened an hour and a half later, an ominous hush fell over the crowd. Hundreds of women rapidly speed-walked to the single rack containing the pieces from the collection. We would’ve run, but we had been warned that running would get us kicked out. I completely lost track of Andrew while making a beeline to the clothes, grabbed a few pieces in my size, and went to wait creepily outside the dressing room for castoffs. After receiving hostile looks from women who hadn’t gotten any clothes off the rack, I decided not to be greedy and went to find Andrew. After a quick lap around the store, I found him with a cart full of items. While I obsessed over the clothes, Andrew had wandered the store and found housewares, make up, hair accessories, and a whole bunch of other items I’d never even thought of. I left Target that day with many new treasures and a whole new appreciation of Andrew. When I treated him to a thank you breakfast afterward, I insisted we park in clear view of the car so I could keep an eye on my prizes. I don’t know who I imagined would break into a car full of Target bags in a pancake house’s parking lot, but at the time, it seemed like a very possible scenario.
Lilly has been with me for most of the major events of the last 12 years of my life. I graduated with my B.A. and M.Ed. in Lilly. I wore it to my wedding shower because a little white dress wasn’t my style. I’ve worn it to weddings, to fancy holiday dinners, and to every other special occasion you could imagine. But for the most part, my beautiful dresses and neon tops lived in my closet. After all, I spent half of my 20s either attending college classes or working in a residential special education school. Part of that job was being ready to run after a student or intervene in physical altercations at any moment. I lived in jeans, flats, and simple Target and Old Navy tops. It seemed such a waste for these pieces to sit there unworn, waiting for the special events they would make even more memorable. But one rainy Saturday morning, that changed. I woke up feeling down. I usually loved cozy, rainy days because of the excuse to slow down, snuggle up with Gloria, and read a book, but this day, I just didn’t feel right. I dragged myself out of bed to shower, and then I found myself standing in my closet with the usual frustration of having a ton of clothes but nothing to wear. And then I saw a t-shirt dress I had purchased in the most recent APS, bright, fun, beckoning me out of my bad mood. I pulled it off the hanger, slid it over my head, and smiled. It felt a little silly to dress up on a regular Saturday with no special plans, so I talked to Andrew and we decided to make some. We went to Barnes and Noble and browsed, we got lunch at a cozy restaurant, and we put work out of our minds and just enjoyed ourselves. And in its simplicity, the day became special.
From that point on, I decided that there was no reason why my Lilly needed to sit on their hangers, waiting for some special occasion that (let’s face it) probably wouldn’t come. Instead, I would take some advice from Lilly herself: “Life’s a party, dress like it.” My Lilly became my weekend wear and, when I got my current job, my work attire. I bought it for Emily as soon as I knew I was having a girl, and matching with her on random Saturdays brings me so much joy! She loves the colors too, and every time she sees Lilly, she pats the fabric gently with her little had, gazing it it just like I did in that store 14 years ago. One of her favorite toys is literally a pair of her Lilly bloomers. She just likes to hold them and throw them at me, always giggling hysterically. Naturally, when I found this pop up tent marked down, I had to buy it for her.
Surprisingly, Lilly also became my go-to when something stressful, sad, or overwhelming was happening in my life. I wore Lilly dresses for fun occasions like date nights and family gatherings, but also to my most stressful IEP meetings, to doctors appointments early in my pregnancy when I was terrified of getting bad news, and to work on days when I just wanted to stay home and snuggle with Gloria. I wore it on rainy and snowy days to brighten my mood through the dreariness. When the midwife at my OB’s office told me I was gaining too much weight, I grabbed my favorite Run Around shorts to prove that even though I was 5 months pregnant, I was still me. Even during this pandemic, I’ve worn my Lilly leggings and shorts nearly every day because they make me feel stronger. Wearing bright colors makes me feel like I’m refusing to fade into the background, and it gives me strength. On the darkest days, those clothes are the first thing I reach for. It has become my armor against darkness, fear, stress, sadness, and basically everything life throws at me.
So find your armor. Find what makes you feel confident no matter what and wear it when you need that extra burst of strength. After all, as Lilly said, “Everything is possible with sunshine and a little pink.”
Note: This is not a sponsored post in any way, I just really love my Lilly.
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