Pink Magnolia Celebrates the Life & Times of the Late Designer Lilly Pulitzer

There’s an aura of real sadness at the Pink Magnolia Store at 9810 Clayton Road at Dwyer Place this week.

The store’s inspiration and mentor Lilly Pulitzer quietly passed away surrounded by family members at her home in Palm Beach, Florida at age 81.

The designer and socialite built an empire of brightly printed clothes she produced and sold her entire professional career.

How she got into women’s clothing design is interesting. Her husband Peter Pulitzer, grandson of publisher Joseph Pulitzer maintained orange groves in central Florida. Complaining of stains in her sheath dresses in the orange and grapefruit fields, she came up with something colorful to cover those stains. And that was the inspiration for a brand that often featured mixtures of pink and green and orange and other vibrant hot pastel colors. These colors are hot sellers, even to this day.

The preppy explosion of tropical prints and colors were worn by socialites from Greenwich, CT to Palm Beach.

Pink Magnolia has been the exclusive distributor of the Lilly Pulitzer line of clothing for as long as the store has been open. Lori Ann Malugen and investors took over ownership six years ago.

"The last time I meet with Lilly was Dec. 11 at market in Palm Beach. "She had such an interesting personality and was so happy and full of fun. There was just one of a kind of Lilly Pulitzer," remembered Malugen.

No woman, worth her salt at either St. Louis Country Club or Old Warson would be seen in the dining room, the card room or on the golf course without wearing a well-selected Lilly Pulitzer outfit.

There's so much history to Lilly Pulitzer

Her old school friend Jackie Kennedy began wearing Lilly's and was featured prominently in Life Magazine, wearing a classic shift.

Along with her friend Laura Clark, Pulitzer sold a sleeveless version and one with sleeves for $22. The first stores opened on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach in 1961.

Between the two, they began to build an empire of status clothing, seen often at Florida clubs, the likes of the Everglades Club; the Bath & Tennis Club; and the Palm Beach Hobe Sound (the Jupiter Island Club) now.

Eventually, everyone from Caroline Kennedy to Dina Merrill to Happy Rockefeller were fans of the popular brand.

In 1969, she divorced and eventually married Cuban Enrique “Caca” Rousseau who ran a sugar business until he died in 1993.

In 1984, she began to lose her influence with the birth of the Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and other newer, more popular brands. Still, Lilly outfits remain very popular locally with the Pink Magnolia faithful in Ladue.

The company has been sold several times now, and is owned by Atlanta-based Oxford Indusries, with manufacturing in King of Prussia,PA.

Oxford Industries holds the Tommy Bahama Brand.

So for the women who proudly wore the Lilly Pulitzer line of clothing, and have those fashionable and colorful summer dresses hanging smartly in their closets, a toast of the champagne glass to the old gal herself, the late Lilly Pulitzer.