A decade ago, Lilly Pulitzer’s bright prints were omnipresent on college campuses across the US, and a pop-up for its 2015 collaboration with Target in New York’s Bryant Park drew crowds of Millennial shoppers at the height of their modern preppy obsession. That same year, sales grew 22 percent.
Fashion has since moved on from that aesthetic, but Lilly Pulitzer hasn’t: In an era of quiet luxury, affordable facsimiles of the loud colors and patterns favored by the wealthy denizens of Palm Beach, Florida, where the brand was founded 65 years ago, look out of place. Sales reflect that stagnation, growing 1 percent last year to $343.5 million.
Looking to usher in the brand’s next era, earlier this month Lilly Pulitzer unveiled a new logo that retains its signature bright pink hue — but now with a typeface that looks straight out of the 1950s, the decade the brand was founded.
Gen-Z tastes reign supreme now, and they have a very different idea of what preppy looks like. Rather than shift dresses, they’re big on neutral oversized blazers and baggy jeans. Rather than fully capitulate to Gen Z’s tastes, Lilly Pulitzer is targeting customers who “love the brand that maybe hadn’t shopped in a while,” said the brand’s chief executive Michelle Kelly. That includes occasion wear, where bright and bold still flies even in today’s quiet luxury moment. In March, it released a collaboration with Badgley Mischka, with pieces running from $400 to $700, versus a $100 to $300 standard price point.
« How private equity rolled Red LobsterFTX exec who turned on Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 7.5 years in prison »
