NEW YORK — When Lilly Pulitzer started her juice stand in Palm Beach, Fla., more than 50 years ago, little did she know that today, her name would be connected with a lifestyle brand.
The King of Prussia, Pa.-based brand has a well-known and fully developed sportswear and dress business, bringing in more than $50 million in annual wholesale volume. The company is privately held by owners Scott Beaumont, chief executive officer, and James Bradbeer, president, who bought the brand in 1993. Lilly Pulitzer herself is now in her 70s and lives in Palm Beach. She is retired from the company, but consults on occasion.
Besides apparel, the firm has been dabbling in new products for a few years, adding small elements such as men’s neckwear and swim trunks, a few handbags and the random scarf. Now, said Bradbeer, “we are getting serious about the lifestyle.”
Bradbeer said he always had thought of Lilly Pulitzer as a small company, focused on offering “true Lilly lovers” every item to fill their closets. He remained focused on this idea until the first Lilly Pulitzer book, “Essentially Lilly: A Guide to Colorful Entertaining,” published by Harper Collins and written by Jay Mulvaney and Pulitzer herself, hit shelves in 2004. The book sales surprised both the publishers and Bradbeer, exceeding 50,000 copies. He said it was then that he realized exactly how much product Pulitzer potentially could sell.
So the company, which meets regularly with its “advisory board” of devoted Lilly Pulitzer customers, decided to test new ideas, hoping to expand beyond the current mix. Bradbeer said he and his team got positive feedback, propelling them to move the business into a new arena.
“What I learned is that those companies that are successful have a clear vision of lifestyle, like Anthropologie and Ralph Lauren,” he explained. “I believe that Lilly has that same sort of lifestyle brand potential, as long as we stay true to who we are — a Palm Beach-inspired brand.”
As new elements of the Lilly Pulitzer brand hit at retail, the company will “double or even triple in volume” in the next year, Bradbeer said. In addition to planning the launch of a full men’s wear collection for summer 2007 and an in-house accessories and footwear collection being introduced for spring, the company has hired a slew of new creative talent to fine-tune the look and fit of the core sportswear, swimwear and dresses. Bradbeer said he is working on deals for a select group of licensed products, such as eyewear, watches, furniture and fragrance. Among his new hires is Pirkko Karhunen, who joined in the newly created position of senior vice president of women’s and children’s apparel design. Most recently, she was senior director of design for women’s and girls’ at Lands’ End.
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Since she started at Lilly Pulitzer, Karhunen said she has been working to modernize the collection in look and fit.
Karhunen said she also is working on improving the swimwear fits, hoping to make swimsuit shopping a little less anxiety-driven by offering more flattering swimwear. The traditional Lilly Pulitzer prints also have been fading a bit, offering new takes on the brand’s traditional pink and green. For example, there’s a pink-and-white polkadot social dress, a green-and-white brocade coat and a pink-and-green tunic. The apparel wholesales between $25 and $198.
To head the men’s wear, which will hit stores next summer as a full collection of sportswear and accessories, Bradbeer said he wanted to bring in someone who had experience in the business, but also who saw beyond the flowery ties and pink-and-green printed pants.
So he has hired Doug Conklyn as vice president of men’s apparel. Conklyn joins the company from HMX Sportswear, where he was executive vice president of merchandising and design. Prior to that, Conklyn held senior positions at Polo Ralph Lauren for five years.
Conklyn said this new venture led him to heavily research men’s lives in Palm Beach and found they have balls to attend, sporting events and a full range of activities that require them to have the proper wardrobe. While the collection is still in the design stages, Conklyn said it will have its staple navy blazer, in addition to fine silk ties (maybe a pink and green stripe), leather belts, perfectly fitted woven shirts and dress and casual pants.
To head up the brand’s nonapparel brand development, Bradbeer promoted Linda Bradbury to vice president of accessories, footwear and new product development. She was previously vice president of production. To help her with the new line of shoes and handbags, Bradbury brought in Janie Schoenborn, founder of Buzz by Jane Fox, a handbag company. She joined Lilly Pulitzer as senior designer of accessories, footwear and new product development.
“Our customers weren’t coming to us for handbags, they were going to Buzz by Jane Fox,” Bradbeer explained. “So when we approached Janie, she was thrilled to come in to start a line and even closed her business and moved her family to Pennsylvania to do so.”
To help with the shoe line, Schoenborn brought in Saji James Simon, doctor of podiatric medicine, as designer of women’s footwear. Simon joins Lilly Pulitzer from Brighton where he most recently served as the head shoe designer.
“Sometimes my ideas for shoes are pretty, but painful,” Schoenborn said. “So Saji and I really work well together to make them less painful.”
The new shoe line includes both flat and heeled sandals as well as espadrilles. The handbags range from small and large canvas totes to bright leather and plastic printed bags to silk clutches. Bags will wholesale from $44 to $115, and shoes will range from $69 to $84.
Also, there are plans in the works to open company-owned freestanding stores, to add to the already 75 licensed stores currently in business nationwide. The concept for its own stores came to life in the Bloomingdale’s 59th Street shop-in-shop here. The 700-square-foot shop, which opened on the third floor about a year-and-a-half ago, has been “incredibly successful,” bringing in more than $2,000 a square foot, business that has doubled since its opening.
“We have done really well with the brand over the years,” said Frank Doroff, senior executive vice president and general merchandise manager for ready-to-wear at Bloomingdale’s. “We have developed this very loyal Lilly customer and it does well in our 59th Street store as well as in lots of our other locations.”
Besides Bloomingdale’s, Lilly Pulitzer is sold in major department and specialty stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Lord & Taylor.
Because of its success, Bradbeer began a retail strategy, opening company-owned stores, the first of which is in the King of Prussia Mall, near company headquarters. The 4,000-square-foot store was designed to look like the Vias, a quaint, but popular shopping center in Palm Beach. Details include the juice stand-inspired cash wrap, white wood fixtures accented with greenery and sandy tile floors. The store also is broken down into sections, such as the Social Lilly, housing ladies’ social dressing; Day Lilly, ladies’ everyday dressing; Resort Shop, anything you need to take on vacation, from swim to cover-ups to golf apparel; Casa Loca, accessories, gifts and home, and Minnies, children’s wear (named after Pulitzer’s daughter, Minnie).
Bradbeer said that, since they opened this store just over a year ago, he has expanded to new markets, testing about 10 stores in areas such as White Plains, N.Y.; Key West, Fla.; La Cantera, Tex., and Fashion Valley, Calif. On Friday, the company will open another store in Dallas’ NorthPark shopping center, and another will open in the fall in Greenwich, Conn.
The company’s 75 licensed stores each have a different name and its own style, depending on where it’s located. For example, in Denver, the store is called Limeade, and in Rehoboth Beach, Del., the store is named Tickled Pink. The shops can carry their own brands, but are encouraged to carry 90 percent of the Lilly Pulitzer mix and “A Lilly Pulitzer Signature Shop” is included on the sign. Because Bradbeer doesn’t want to compete with the company’s licensed stores, he is working to open in locations that do not interfere with their businesses.