Saturday, June 13, 2015

Lilly Pulitzer Hosts a Resort Preview for the First Time

Lilly Pulitzer Hosts a Resort Preview for the First Time:

A look from Lilly Pulitzer's resort presentation on Thursday.
A look from Lilly Pulitzer's resort presentation on Thursday.
Lilly Pulitzer is back.

Two years after its founder passed away, the King of Prussia, Penn.-based label is riding high on the momentum from its spring collaboration with Target, which garnered an outsized amount of media attention (not all of it positive) and sold out almost immediately. On Thursday evening, Pulitzer employees clinked glasses with press and well-wishers at The New Museum in downtown New York, where the label's resort 2016 collection — consisting of updates on its signature dresses, shorts and tunics in botanical pinks, greens and nautical white lace — was on display. It was the first time the company had hosted such a presentation in New York.

"We really decided to do this almost a year ago," said Jane Schoenborn, the blonde and cheerful vice president of creative communications at Lilly Pulitzer. "We have been focused on the positioning of resort for awhile, for years and years... [So we decided] we're only going to show one thing, and do it in resort, every year."

Schoenborn said the response to the Target collaboration well exceeded the company's expectations, opening the door to new categories and size ranges — though, because everything sold so quickly, the company didn't get a clear sense of what might be the best new categories to explore. "Sometimes when people do collaborations people are looking to see what sold, but everything sold immediately," she observed.

Regardless, Lilly Pulitzer is back on shoppers' radars. And for a certain kind of shopper — the kind who buys her handbags from Kate Spade, and her basics from J.Crew — the label's optimistic prints and simple silhouettes have a discernible appeal.

Browse the full Lilly Pulitzer resort lookbook below.

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