When you think of Lilly Pulitzer, what do you envision?
Perhapsthe brandwith its bright pink playful logo and fashion to match?
Here are some things you may not know about the lady behind the label.
Both her mother and father, Lillian Bostwick and Robert McKim respectively, were from “old-line families.”
However, money cannot buy happiness nor love, it seems.
The report goes on to explain that the couple divorced when little Lilly was just six years old.
Still, Lilly Pulitzer’s childhood was stable and affluent.
“I had a party every year,” she explains toVanity Fair.
That is, shebrieflywent to college.
Pulitzer said in an interview withVanity Fair, “I went for two months.
I couldn’t stand it.
I loved my boarding school, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I didn’t have a career.”
So, what did she do instead to fill her time?
Pulitzer herself added, “I liked it.
Just giving time.”
Sometimes Lilly would be asked to lend a hand in home births.
Now how’s that for exciting work?
That would be Herbert ‘Peter’ Pulitzer Jr., golden-boy grandson of fabled family patriarch Joseph Pulitzer."
How did Lilly Pulitzer’s family react?
About as you’d expect given that it was the early 1950s after all.
“Everyone was shocked,“Vanity Fairreported.
“Family and friends were hardly aware Lilly knew Peter, let alone loved him.
Lilly even had a rhesus monkey, Goony.”
Not the most traditional of house pets, to be sure.
Fortunately, her husband totally on-board.
Imagine being invited to one of those phenomenal parties in Palm Beach circa 1960s.
It would be a hard opportunity to pass up.
She identifies with her zodiac sign a Scorpio.
I’m not into horoscopes and all that, but it is telling.
Scorpios hold everything in.”
With today’s medical knowledge, one could attribute Pulitzer’s change in demeanor to postpartum depression.
“I had terrible anxiety attacks,” Pulitzer herself explained toW Magazine.
The article clarified, “The nuthouse was a psychiatric hospital in Westchester County, New York.”
It was there that Pulitzer received an interesting treatment plan.
And get a hobby, she did.
Lilly Pulitzer explained, “‘It started in the [station] wagon…. Just delivering fruit to houses.
Then I had the place to store the fruit and write the orders for the gift boxes.
It was alongside this fashion-minded friend that Pulitzer would come up with her brand.
And we started selling those.
We just arbitrarily sold them for $22.
And there was an absolute stampede.”
With that, Lilly Pulitzer the brand was born and Lilly Pulitzer the woman was, perhaps, reborn.
After I got out of the nuthouse I became much more assertive.”
In addition, her fashion also quiteliterallysaved her life.
It was almost dusk, and they were stranded on a submerged plane."
But all hope was not lost.
The article continues, “Clark took off her bright-orange Lilly and flagged a passing helicopter.”
She told the magazine: “T*ts will get ‘em every time.”
The couple’s youngest daughter, Liza Pulitzer, toldThe New York Times, “It was traumatic.
None of us even saw it coming.
Because there was never any fighting.”
Interestingly, Rousseau actually also worked with Peter Pulitzer.
And then he became the manager.
And then he married me."
However, this was no rebound fling.
Sadly, in 1993 after 23 years of marriage, Enrique Rousseau passed away.
You would have loved Enrique.
We were very Cuban.
We had the entire Cuban nation in our house.
We screamed Cuban, we ate Cuban, we laughed Cuban.
Caca Rousseau, the Crazy Cuban.
I don’t know why we started calling him Caca.
But we all did.
Term of endearment."
According toW Magazine, one retailer in particular thought Pulitzer ought to make autumn-appropriate clothing.
Pulitzer disagreed saying, “Oh, but you don’t understand, it’s always summer somewhere.”
So instead, Pulitzer added more summery clothing, including swimwear, and made upwards of $15 million.
Indeed, she knew what she was doing.
But that’s not to say Pulitzer never faltered.
It was snowing up north, so we had to do winter woolies and printed velvet.
But when the velvet I’d ordered came back from the Orient, it all said Lilly Rulitzer.
We laughed ourselves sick.
in January 1964 Slim Aaronspic.twitter.com/y05sVoTAvg
Pulitzer began to notice a pattern of decreasing profits.
“I started it as a lark, and I followed my whim.
It worked for 25 years, but it wasn’t going to work forever,” Pulitzer toldSun Sentinel.
According toVanity Fair,Pulitzer even had the final say on design.
If she wasn’t fond of a certain print or even a particular color, the item was scrapped.
She was 81,Voguereports.
While saddened to lose Pulitzer,many fondly reminiscedon how she impacted their lives for the better.
This sounds like just the thing Pulitzer would’ve loved.
