Once upon a time there was a spunky New York socialite named Lilly who came to Palm Beach. Despite the diverse mix of charity balls and shopping that the Palm Beach lifestyle provided, poor Lilly got bored. Luckily, her husband Peter Pulitzer (yep, Pulitzer as in "Prize") just happened to own several citrus groves around the state. Life had handed Lilly some lemons, so what else was there to do but make lemonade?
Lilly opened her first juice stand just off Worth Avenue in 1960. But the business turned out to be messier than she had imagined. To keep the juice splatters from ruining her clothes, Lilly implored her dressmaker to design a simple sleeveless shift dress made out of bright, multicolored cotton fabric that would camouflage the stains.
Now our dear Lilly had a new dilemma - Palm Beachers were more captivated with her dress than her juices.
So she cast aside her oranges and lemons to venture into designing and selling her signature dresses, and her efforts were an instant hit around Palm Beach.
Soon one of Lilly's high school chums came to Florida for a visit, and she too was stricken by the Lilly craze. Of course, when your high school friend just happens to be Jackie Kennedy, it helps a little. And when Jackie Kennedy happens to wear her Lilly dress in "Life" magazine, it helps a lot.
In the 60s and 70s, Lilly Pulitzer became the label of choice among preppy resort-goers along the East Coast.
But in 1984, Lilly wearers turned up their noses a little bit higher to join in a collective wail: Lilly was closing her doors to enjoy more time with her new husband (she and Peter had divorced in 1969) and her grandchildren.
However, the dark ages of resort-wear lasted only nine years. In 1993, the Lilly Pulitzer label was revived and the business has since blossomed as brightly as her as one its trademark floral prints. Though it all started with a simple shift dress, her empire has grown to incorporate pants, skirts, sweaters, shirts, purses, formalwear, shoes, bathing suits, children's wear, cumber bunds, ties, bed linens and home accessories into the mix.
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Needless to say, that's a lot of pink, green, yellow and turquoise. And as anyone who's ever entered a Lilly Pulitzer Signature Store can attest to, seeing all this Lilly in one room can literally be quite blinding.
But it doesn't take a visit to the Lilly store to realize how popular this brand has become right here at the University. Although you might see a dabbling of Lilly here and there around Grounds in the springtime, there's one event every year in which all things Lilly swarm together for an entire afternoon.
An event where you need shades to protect your eyes not so much from the sun, but from the glare of Lilly's trademark smattering of pastels.
Oh, and this event just happens to be this weekend.
That's right: it's time for Foxfield, the only steeplechase that might well be mistaken for a Lilly catalog photo shoot.
I only saw two races last year (that might not seem like a lot, but I'm sure most of you never even laid eyes on a horse).
But let there be no mistake: I saw a whole lot of Lilly, and, more importantly, a whole lot of the same Lilly. There's just no escaping the fact that if you wear Lilly to Foxfield, you're bound to run into your identical twin somewhere.
Yes, I too wore Lilly to Foxfield as a first year. But after a day of random girls approaching me and saying "nice Lilly!" with a wink and a nudge to indicate that they were wearing the exact same pattern, I made a steadfast resolution that in Foxfields to come, my Lilly items would remain safely hidden in my closet.
Admittedly, Lilly seems to be a valid choice of apparel for this hallowed Virginia tradition. Spring sunshine and an all day outdoor party - when you add them up, Lilly seems like a pretty logical answer. And after all, Lilly's dresses were created to mask juice stains, which means that when your vodka-cran just happens to jump out at you, no one will be the wiser.
In principle, I'm all for Lilly, but when you're standing in 80 degree weather being jostled among a teeming sea of "rockin' lobster" and "pocket of posies," (just two of the oh-so-preppily named Lilly patterns on the market this spring), you can't help but feel like you're sinking into a giant sticky pit full of cotton candy.
Despite my take on the matter, many girls still consider Lilly and Foxfields to be synonomous - neither would be complete without the other, sort of like peanut butter and jelly, or South Beach and thong bikini bottoms.
So on Saturday, wear those kooky straw hats, get those kitten heels stuck in the mud, and flout that pesky drinking age technicality.
And don't forget the sunglasses, because like it or not, we're all going to be blinded by the Lilly.
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