| Lilly Pulitzer started making her famous dresses in 1960. She and her dressmaker designed the original little cotton print shift dress to hide the stains she acquired working in her Palm Beach, Florida, fruit juice stand. Before long, people were asking about the dress, so Pulitzer began selling the dresses at the stand.
She got a tremendous boost when the first lady, Jackie Kennedy, was pictured in Life magazine wearing a Lilly Pulitzer dress. By 1961 she had a lot more orders for her "Lilly" dresses than for juice, so she closed the stand and opened Lilly Pulitzer, Inc.
Her dresses were brightly colored and often whimsical prints that usually incorporated her name, "Lilly," somewhere in the design. These dresses proliferated nationally throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The earlier dresses are 100% cotton. Key West handprinting was used to produce some of the fabrics. Sometime in the mid to late 1960s Lilly Pulitzer started using a 65% Poly/35% cotton blend. In the 1970s she did some garments in 100% poly knit. Also, Lilly Pulitzer did a little girl's line, named for her daughter, Minnie, and a junior line named for daughter, Liza. A men's line was added in the early 1970s.
Lilly retired in 1984, but the business reopened in 1993. Today Lilly Pulitzer fabrics are named, and the company has branched off into assessories and shoes. The emphasis is still on the original bright colors and wimsical prints introduced by Ms. Pulitzer in 1960.
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