Remembering Lilly Pulitzer

{a little tribute I did today. I have Lilly pajamas in that pattern!}

You might have heard that fashion designer, Lilly Pulitzer, passed away today at the age of 81. 

excerpts from this CNN article:

Her schoolmate Jacqueline Kennedy, while first lady, was photographed wearing one of Pulitzer's dresses -- and made her a star. The dress "was made from kitchen curtain material -- and people went crazy," Pulitzer said in her book, "Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Entertaining," excerpted on her company's website. "They took off like zingo. Everybody loved them, and I went into the dress business."

She opened an orange juice stand in Palm Beach, and designed colorful cotton shirts for herself to work in comfortably. Soon, customers wanted to buy her shirts as well as the juice.

excerpts from this Washington Post article:

Pulitzer had three children in quick succession. After the third was born, she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital that catered to upscale clientele in New York. A doctor there told her that she needed to find a job.

“The doctor there said, ‘You’re not happy because you’re not doing anything,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know how to do anything.’ I’d always had everything done for me, always had my nanny and my mummy making up my mind. The doctor said, ‘You’ve got to go out and find something to do,’” Pulitzer told The New Yorker in 2000. 

Pulitzer gave the same prescription to her friends. If one of them needed something to do, Pulitzer would open a store in her town. “I don’t know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day,” she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. “I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There’s no explaining the fun I had.”

“I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy,” Pulitzer.

“Style isn’t just about what you wear, it’s about how you live,” Pulitzer said in 2004.

“We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style,” she said.

Here's to a trailblazer to who left behind a very colorful mark. 

until next time,

g