First, let’s address the obvious. Yes I am very excited for Lilly Pulitzer’s collaboration with Target. I am a devoted Lilly Lover with a dedicated list of Grail Prints I’ve collected and covet. So if screaming loud prints of giraffes and tropical fruit don’t send you into a tizzy, come back tomorrow, I’ll have more diamonds.
via Glamour
If you too, are a Lilly Lover, but you’re aghast that this icon of Prep is lowering itself to the unwashed masses, we need to have a quick chat. Grab your lemonade, spike it with gin if it’s after noon 5, and pull up a Chippendale patio chair.
Target is famous for its designer collaborations with high-end fashion houses – Peter Pilotto, Missoni, Phillip Lim, etc. All have been wildly popular (Missoni in particular was bonkers.) Yet none of them make as much sense as Lilly for Target. Here’s Why:
- There is a near perfect overlap in audience – show me a Lilly Lover who doesn’t love to waltz down the Dollar Spot aisle grabbing random gifts and I will show you a liar. Moreover, the average rabid Lilly fan is young, still living la dolce vita via an allowance, and can sacrifice $2 Tuesdays once a month to save up for a Lilly shift she wants whenever her Mom doesn’t just buy it for her. This girl shops at Target, I promise you. I was her.
- It’s Lilly. Not Lanvin. Take a breather. Nearly every dress in a Lilly Boutique is under $300 with a few rare exceptions, so we aren’t talking haute couture peeps. We’re talking sundresses.
- Closing that price gap is even easier than the prior designer collaborations, which means better quality goods than we’ve seen before. Rather than Target-quality with couture style, you get an elevated product from Target with Lilly’s trademark brand spirit.
- Lilly Pulitzer herself may have been a socialite but she wasn’t a snob. The woman started a juice stand on Palm Beach for crying out loud. She threw parties and invited the whole damn island, often ending up in the pool with the entire guest list. She would’ve wanted as many people wearing her cheery prints as humanly possible.
Lilly for Target means more people can wear Lilly. More Lilly makes the world a better place. That being said: here’s my plan of action for Lilly Pulitzer for Target.
Thank Lilly and my lucky stars I’ll be in South Florida for the launch. It’s very possible that Chicago’s Target might be the better option because Lilly is not so much of a Thing here, but that cuts both ways. There’s not even a Lilly Pulitzer store in the city, so every midwestern prep this side of South Bend might make a beeline for one of our three Targets in the city proper. Four if you count Uptown. Moreover, these are city Targets, not the sprawling megastores of my Suburban youth. So while an Au Bon Pain is always welcome on the first floor, that’s really more space you could be devoting to Lilly, State Street Target. And my Little will be here still, so I can count on her to nab any leftover shift dresses that Midwesterners deem “insensible.”
So no, it’s better that I’m in Florida, for one major reason. My Mother. We’ve devised a divide and conquer strategy where we’ll camp out, armed with Starbucks (from the one in the parking lot, not the one inside) prior to the store’s opening. My best friend and her Mom will be at another Target further north in Palm Beach County, to account for any inventory discrepancies or localized demand. We will also, obviously, be furiously reloading the website beginning at midnight that Saturday, but let’s be serious here that sucker is going to crash.
Post-Battle of Blackwater-style shopping, we’ll head to Boca Resort for a relaxing spa day to unwind, hopefully clutching all of the below in our hands.
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