Let’s Celebrate Lilly Pulitzer’s Birthday 2022!

Late fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer once said: “it’s always summer somewhere!” On this very day, Lilly Pulitzer would be celebrating her 91st Birthday. And, today, we are partying like it’s 1931 in our brightest Lilly Pulitzer shifts and a cocktail in hand in her honor! As a little girl, I fell in love with the Lilly Pulitzer brand and my love for the brand only continued to grow throughout my high school and college years. The Lilly Pulitzer fashion brand has helped me express myself and become who I am today.

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Lilly Pulitzer embodies everything in a person that I want to be! She was kind, classy, bright, bubbly, and always down for a GREAT time. Growing up, the brand Lilly Pulitzer embodied to me someone who was everything that Lilly Pulitzer, herself, was. My late Great Aunt Margaret was a Lilly Pulitzer lover as well. She introduced me to the brand as a little girl when we passed The Pink Crab – an Annapolis, Maryland-based Lilly Pulitzer Signature Store and I immediately wanted to buy everything in the store. Just like Lilly Pulitzer, Aunt Margaret truly embodied the woman that Lilly Pulitzer was. That all being said, today is a day that I think is well worth honoring these two women that helped shape me into who I am today.

In college, I was known as “the Lilly [Pulitzer] girl”: a namesake that I am truly proud of to this very day. I ALWAYS wore Lilly Pulitzer in college and both of my dorms along with my college apartment were decked out in all things Lilly Pulitzer-themed. At the same time, I constantly hosted my friends over for dinners, parties, and viewing parties of The Bachelor in my apartment with my roommate and one of my best friends to this day Sophie. Thankfully for us both, Sophie and I both have a very Lilly Pulitzer-like taste in home decor! I truly found the love of spreading joy, wearing bright colors, and being kind to go a loooonnggg way. All times of life are stressful by my college years surrounded by ALL things Lilly Pulitzer truly made me life a party and I dressed like it regularly, too!

“Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink”

— Lilly Pulitzer

All things taken into consideration, I truly loved my college experience wearing Lilly Pulitzer for practically EVERY event that we had and living up to my nickname of “the Lilly girl”. I am truly proud to be someone that has never been afraid to be herself. Lilly Pulitzer once said “being happy never goes out of style” and it truly doesn’t. There is ALWAYS an opportunity to spread some joy to others, no matter what the occasion may be. In recent times, my Dad’s side of the family has unfortunately experienced some losses. But, through it all, my Aunt Sherri always made sure to give everyone a laugh. To her, laughter is the best medicine and I truly agree. I am a firm believer, just like my Aunt Sherri, that laughter always brings some happiness *even* during the toughest of times. Wearing Lilly Pulitzer brings me SO much joy.

To celebrate Lilly Pulitzer’s 91st Birthday, I have linked some of my favorite Lilly Pulitzer gifts for the strong and extraordinary Lilly lovers in your life!

Here’s to all the strong women in our world – may we know them, may we raise them, may we be them. And, may we honor them today and everyday! Today, I will honor my Great Aunt Margaret who helped shape my fashion sense and personality with her loving nature, kindness, poise, and bubbly personality. I will also honor the late fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer who gave me a love for a brand that I will cherish forever with memories and love of my Aunt Margaret and many others in my life whom I truly love and care for.

XOXO – Katie <3

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Throwing My Best Friend a Lilly Pulitzer-Themed Birthday Party!

This past weekend, I went to my college town of Raleigh, North Carolina to celebrate my good friend Alanna’s 25th Birthday – YAY!! Alanna has been one of my best friends made via my college experience and she is ALSO a fellow Lilly Pulitzer lover. One of Alanna’s dreams was to have someone throw her a Lilly Pulitzer-themed Birthday Party, so our mutual best friend Hannah and I decided to make just that happen. Today, I am going to be sharing ALLL the tea on Alanna’s Lilly Pulitzer-themed Birthday Party!!

So, for Alanna’s Birthday party, I wanted to start by planning out my outfit. I asked Alanna what her favorite Lilly Pulitzer prints were and discovered that we share one of the same favorites – Seaing Things! Y’ALL, I own 6-7 (I lost track haha!) things in this specific print. So, I decided to wear my maxi dress that I purchased during the Lilly Pulitzer Sunshine Sale back in January 2022 along with my Lilly Pulitzer x Lele Saudoughi headband in that exact print, too.

NOW, onto the decorations!! Personally, I ALWAYS choose a few base colors based off of a print and/or theme. Fun fact: for my college dorm room Freshmen year, I based it off of Lilly Pulitzer’s Peel N’ Eat print and chose the colors: aqua, gold, coral/hot pink, white, and gold. SO, I *had* to do the same base color planning for Alanna which happened to be: hot pink, white, and aqua with pops of gold. I went to The Dollar Tree *surprise* for pretty much all of it. I made out a list via my vision for Alanna’s Birthday Party, in order to make it ALLLL happen. I made a list and checked it twice while at The Dollar Tree. Some of the items on that list included: pink and white balloons, B-DAY balloon, pink tablecloths, pink utensils, ribbon, and a Birthday banner. I also allowed some room for myself to simply be creative and see what I could find via my creative soul that could go with the theme. The items that I picked up included: a “Happy Birthday” banner, a gold foil garland, ribbon, gold glittered hand lettered cake topper, a white “Birthday Girl” sash, hot pink utensils, pink and white balloons, and a gold “B-DAY” balloon. As for the Lilly Pulitzer prints, unfortunately, my printer was not working to print out images of Alanna’s favorite prints, so I went through my crafting supply bin and luckily found some old Lilly Pulitzer planner sheets. All in all, my mind was EVERYWHERE when planning Alanna’s Birthday Party decorations, but in the end, it definitely all came together beautifully.

ONTO the execution!! We hosted Alanna’s 25th Birthday Party at Hannah’s place. Hannah and I started decorating a few hours before Alanna arrived and essentially went through ALL of the decorations (which, by the way, fit beautifully into my carry-on luggage) and put them all up together before Alanna arrived. Alanna is a holy grail Chick Fil-A fan and she brought over a heart-shaped tray of 30-count nuggets. Once Alanna arrived to Hannah’s place, we all went to Publix (it was actually my first time there – yay me!!) and we picked out two cakes, cotton candy-flavored wine courtesy of Alanna’s choosing, actual cotton candy, and some chips. It was such a fun memory with some of my best friends and simply catching up with all of ours’s mutual friend Jasmine.

Through it all, I felt oh so blessed to be able to give Alanna the Lilly Pulitzer Birthday Party of her dreams. It was the first time ever that I planned a Birthday Party and it all was such a blast!

XOXO – Katie <3

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Happy 90th Birthday, Lilly Pulitzer!

Cheers to 90 years of bringing sunshine into this world! On this day 90 years ago, a true icon was born: Lilly Pulitzer. Although the fashion designer and socialite is no longer living today, her soul and sunshine lives on within her brightly colored and cheerful designs. Lilly Pulitzer encouraged me to be my best, bubbly, and over the top self on a daily basis. This fashion brand has allowed me to embrace who I am with a pop of confetti and take off after my late Great Aunt Margaret who introduced me to the brand that I now love.

Growing up, I coincidentally fell in love with the name “Lilly”. I actually used to tell my Mom that I wanted me name to be Lilly. Well, it was a sign I suppose, since my favorite fashion designer is Lilly Pulitzer, herself. My Great Aunt Margaret was the hostess with the mostess – she loved her Lilly Pulitzer amongst many other preppy name brands, her social gatherings, her trips, and her wine. I see a lot of her in me today as I carry her legacy, especially within my Lilly Pulitzer-filled wardrobe on a regular basis. To me, Lilly Pulitzer is more than just a fashion brand – it is a lifestyle. And, yes, I am quoting the Lilly Pulitzer brand positioning statement seen within many many many of its catalogs – haha!

Me & my Great Aunt Margaret in 2013!

When I was a Freshmen in college, I decked my dorm room out in Lilly Pulitzer. I had taken all of my old planner sheets full of the bright and bubbly prints that I so love and made a collage with them on the cork board on my door. Needless to say, I was most definitely the brightest of the bunch, especially since all of my hall mates that year were on softball or volleyball or lacrosse team. My bedroom also had a paper banner that I had created with one of my favorite prints – Peel n’ Eat. In fact, Peel n’ Eat was the theme encompassing that entire dorm, from the bedding to the coral throws to the flamingo sheets and even the plush flamingo on my bed. My Freshmen year of college had a lot of ups and a lot of downs with a ton of changes thrown in between, but my love of Lilly Pulitzer remained true throughout the year and beyond.

As the days go by, my love of Lilly Pulitzer remains true to me. I thank my late Great Aunt Margaret for giving me this love of mine, as I plan to live out her legacy everyday – one splash of pink confetti at a time! Happy Birthday to the two great women who have made me me.

XOXO – Katie <3

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