#Lillyfortarget Madness

Happy Monday my Lilly lovers!

Let me tell you, I am mentally and physically exhausted by all of this Lilly Pulitzer for Target madness. I'm super excited to share my Lilly For Target story, but I'm also ready to just relax and enjoy all of my finds. 

Here's the fun background story on Lilly Pulitzer for all of you who aren't familiar with the line: 

It all started with a juice stand in Palm Beach. Lilly, a young, sassy New York socialite had eloped with Peter Pulitzer, grandson of the Pulitzer Prize's Joseph Pulitzer and settled in Palm Beach to live the life of the rich and famous. Peter owned several Florida citrus groves, but Lilly needed a project of her own. So in 1960, with Peter's produce, she opened a juice stand in Palm Beach.

Lilly Pulitzer's business was a hit, but squeezing oranges, lemons, limes, and pink grapefruit made a mess of her clothes. Realizing that she needed a juice stand uniform, Lilly asked her dressmaker to design a dress that would camouflage the stains. The result? A comfortable sleeveless shift made of bright, colorful printed cotton - pink, green, yellow and orange. The dress even had custom dressmaker details like lining and lace seam bindings. It was perfect for the job and became Lilly's first Classic Shift. 
Although her customers liked Lilly's juice, they loved her dress. When people began to ask if they could buy the dress, Lilly had a few more made up to sell in the stand. Soon Lilly was selling more dresses than juice, so she decided to stop squeezing and to focus on designing and selling her "Lillys." Before long, Jackie Kennedy, an old school chum, began wearing Lillys and as First Lady was featured in Life Magazine wearing a Classic Shift. Then, of course, everyone wanted one and Lilly Pulitzer^® became a fashion sensation.

Back in January, Target announced that they were collaborating with Lilly Pulitzer to do a limited time collection out April 19th online and in-store. Um, YES PLEASE! I was introduced to Lilly about 7 years ago while I was on vacation in Florida. I think that's why I love the line so much, it just reminds me of my annual family beach trip.

I was very anxious about the release date, there was so much buzz about it on Instagram that it made me go crazy with excitement. I actually had a few nightmares in the weeks leading up to the date- waiting in line for 2 hours only to get into Target and everything had already been snatched up. This ended up being real life for alot of Lily fans. A reporter from the Star Tribune in Minneapolis actually saw my Instagram post about my nighmare and emailed me about doing a phone interview with her. Some of the interview actually made it into the article! Read it for yourself here: 

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/style/300376531.html

So yesterday was the big day. I woke up around 6am to shower and basically put comfy clothes back on- I was going to Target to fight for what I wanted, not to look pretty. ;) I ended up getting to my Target around 6:30am (first one there!), around 7am some more people started showing up and we all stayed in our cars. At 7:40am a couple girls got out of their car to go wait in line and then 10 more girls ran to go get in line behind them. "Oh boy, this is going to get nasty," is what I immediately thought. I nicely and calmly walked to get in line also, I was a little irritated that I was there first and wasn't the first in line, but thank goodness only about 25 people ended up for the doors opening at 8am. I heard that in some states there were upwards of 400 people who were waiting in line, some since three in the morning! My friend Lindsey was able to meet me around 7:45am with some lifesaving Starbucks in hand for us both. My MOM was also at her local Target in line since 7am. Lindsey and I chatted game plan for the next 15 minutes. It was rumored that everything would be spread out around the Targets, unlike previous collections that had been all in one area of the store. We decided to split up. Lindsey would go to the womens clothing section and I would go to home goods. 8am sharp the doors opened, girls in front of the line literally started SCREAMING and running into the store, i decided a nice fast walk would do. The first thing you see is the purse and scarf section. All i remember is Lindsey and I walking up to it and just standing there and staring while other girls were grabbing things in front of us. Lindsey just starts shouting "just start grabbing stuff!" Game on! It was honestly kind of a blur for the next 15 minutes, girls were running everywhere grabbing everything they could, these people were nuts. I managed to get THIRTY items from the collection. Super lucky duck!

I am definitely one of those people that cant leave Target without spending more than I intended to, but let me tell you this is the first and last time I will ever spend THAT much money at Target. I almost threw up in my mouth a little when the cashier gave me my total. No shopping for me for a couple months!

Here's a breakdown of all my Lilly items:

+houseware+

+accessories+

+clothing+

I feel very lucky that I was able to get everything I did. I saw on Instagram that some girls weren't able to get a single item due to people taking whole racks of clothing to buy and resell on Ebay for triple the price. That's very upsetting to me, the whole idea of this collaboration was for everyone to be able to enjoy some Lilly Pulitzer at a lower price point. If you were one of the people that wasn't able to snag anything, my advice to you in to check back every couple days for returns. I went to 4 different Target stores today and they still had a bit left. I was even able to scoop up the pineapple serving tray and votive candle holders!

I'm a bit sad that the day came and went, I spent so many months anticipating it. Now I guess I'll just have to start saving up for a real $300 Lilly shift dress!