Lilly’s Big Birthday Bash, Brooks Brothers New Digs

Today we share a look at Lilly Pulitzer’s 80th birthday bash, clearly the place to be this weekend for many of us who admire the iconic designer.

The event was at the Museum of Lifestyle and Fashion History, an ideal venue, the Museum has been featuring a special Lilly  exhibit.

Courtesy Life is Better with a Twist of Lime

As one would expect at such a festive occasion, there was an abundance of pink and green.

Via Southern Living Preppy Style

Here is how Lilly’s plate looked.

Courtesy Mary Lane

What does one have for dessert at a celebration like this?

Courtesy Southern Living Preppy Style

Our thanks to the always delightful Jennifer from Southern Living Preppy Style for sharing her lovely pictures, below we see her with the birthday girl.

Courtesy Southern Living Preppy Style

Mary Lane was chairwoman of the event, we see her looking ever-so-chic below left, and on the right…wait a minute, I know that guy! It’s the one and only Kiel James Patrick.

Courtesy Mary Lane (L) & Twist of Lime (R)

Fortunately Kiel’s better half friend Sarah Vickers was also at the party, we see her below (L) with Bethany of Maryland Pink and Green (C) and Wendy of Life is Better with a Twist of Lime, isn’t that a gorgeous group?

Courtesy Life is Better with a Twist of Lime

There was also a fashion show by a company that knows its Lilly, C. Orrico.

Courtesy Mary Lane

There were also vintage styles shown, yours truly actually owns the frock on the left.

Courtesy Mary Lane

The party was clearly an enormous success, our hats are off to those who organized the gala. We also want to thank Mary Lane and Wendy of a Twist of Lime for graciously sharing their photos!

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Our second topic today involves another storied prep brand, Brooks Brothers, the retailer opened its new Flatiron concept store this weekend.

Steve Eichner/Women's Wear Daily

More on the store’s different look from Women’s Wear Daily:

….represents a major departure for the retailer in terms of merchandising. While the entire apparel assortment is also found in the company’s traditional Brooks Brothers stores, it is brought together in a creative, playful way to attract its target customer: college students and young professionals.

The merchandise has an edgier appeal without detracting from the core brand.

Brooks Brothers Courtesy Photos

The company is wise to broaden its customer base, more on the tactic in this post on the concept store.

Steve Eichner/Women's Wear Daily

Speaking of Brooks, we wanted to share the latest celebrity to step out in the company’s formal wear.

Disney

That is one very dapper frog, it turns out he wears Brooks in his new movie that opens Thanksgiving.

Collaborations of a Preppy Kind (Ahem) & “New Prep”

If this isn’t a glorious fall day, we’re not sure what is; we hope yours is equally bright and beautiful.

We have all manner of collaborative partnerships to share, almost all with a prep slant. We begin with one involving a longtime Princess fave, J. Press, and Urban Outfitters.

NY Magazine

NY Magazine has more:

“J. Press, the preppy menswear label beloved by every Ivy Leaguer with Wall Street ambitions, has partnered with Urban Outfitters to make a line of sweaters, ribbon belts, ties, vests, and shirts. The collection features a tie in Princeton orange, a scarf in Dartmouth green, and a belt in Cornell red, among other collegiate-inspired items that are perfect for frolicking around the quad and spilling beer.”

Womenswear inclusion in a future J. Press collaboration would make us a very happy camper indeed.

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Next, a partnership we have previously mentioned, and one that has had us more than a tad nervous.

Fred Perry

Yes, it is the Amy Winehouse Fred Perry collection, definitely in the You Can’t Make this Stuff Up category.

Via

While the talented performer’s troubled history would make it easy to mock the line, the reality is that there are many appealing pieces, especially for those of us hopelessly lost in the fifties.

It is unlikely we shall acquire anything from the line, for as much as we like many of the items, we also recognize our limitations, knowing we would forever associate pieces with Ms. Winehouse and the frequently unfortunate circumstances she frequently finds herself in, despite her amazing talents.  However, it *is* an extremely fun group to graze, click here to do just that.

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Our next collection has received oodles of coverage, and we are more than a little late to the party on this one. (“Late to the party” being a teevee snooze news term referencing ‘old news’ ((yes, an oxymoron, we understand that)), perilously akin to ‘moldy oldie,’ news coverage that should not be allowed to float out over the airwaves.) Of course we are talking about the Lanvin H&M collection.

There are some amazing party frocks, among other goodies.

The Guardian has more, referencing Lanvin design genius Alber Elbaz.

“The collection, entitled Lanvin Hearts H&M, includes party clothes and accessories for women and men and, unmistakably, carries the Elbaz design signature.”

The line approaches “we’ll take one of each” levels. Unfortunately, the Prepatorium is not located near an H&M, and the company does not sell online in the US.

The word ‘droolworthy’ comes to mind.

How popular does H&M expect the collection to be? We go back to the Guardian for that answer.

“A spokesman for the brand said at the preview: “We expect it to sell out that day.” H&M will limit shoppers to two versions of the same dress in an attempt to prevent the growing practice of eBay flipping, but the spokesman admitted that it was impossible to control.”

We can see why.

After all, as we are wont to say here at Princess InterGalactic HQ, “Life is better with a bow.”

The collection launches November 23, to see all of the goodies, pop over to Vogue UK for the lookbook.  Sigh.

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Our final collaborative endeavor involves a perennial favorite, The Gap, and an unlikely partner, Valentino.

Via High Snobette

It is a very small line, only seven pieces, launching in late November, but only available at Gap stores in London and new Milan shop, as well as online at the super-hip Colette.

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We want to do what we believe is called a ‘shout out’ to friend and fab designer Kiel James Patrick.

Providence Journal

His hometown paper has done quite the spread on his growing company, describing his creations as “New Prep,” perhaps a surprise to Kiel, certainly an old school prep if ever we met one.  We love that the story points that it was Sarah Vickers, Kiel’s longtime partner and collaborator, who suggested he actually start the company.  (Go Sarah!)  We are proud to carry many of Kiel and Sarah’s designs here at the Princess, including KJP headbands and earrings.

It’s always nice to see good things happen to good people, especially these two.

The Providence Journal/Kris Craig

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We leave you with a quick Sales & Savings alert:

Polo Ralph Lauren

Polo Ralph Lauren is doing its “Private Sale” (don’t get us started on the ‘privacy’ of said sale), offering up to 40% off regular prices, as well as an additional 15% off the 40% off. Use promo code NOV0410 to receive the additional discount.  Also offering discounted goods, Bergdorf Goodman.

The retailer’s fall sale kicked off today.

Until next time, grins and giggles!

 

A Monday Melange (with Preppy Overtones)

Hello-Hello, and welcome to a Monday, we are ever-so-happy to be back home at the Prepatorium.

We begin with a note of gratitude, directed to all who helped keep The Consort out of trouble occupied while we were away. Honestly, the timing of events while out-of-town was reminiscent of our years in news, when employees would brace for spot news anytime we left town. It seemed that way for our latest escape, no sooner did we hop on a plane than we heard about a Lilly Pulitzer furniture collection launching, as well as Lilly’s home being for sale. (Many thanks to those kind enough to send along the URLs for the Lilly Pulitzer house listing the Consort wrote about here.) We hope to scare up a little more information on what will be a major furniture line later this week.

Back to standard fare, it is Fashion Week again, this time in Paris, considered by some to be the only place to show.  (Ahem.) A few personalities of note, the Nuclear Wintour Anna Wintour is seen attending the Chloé show, and on the right we have Liv Tyler and Justin Timberlake at Givenchy.

We will have more styles as the shows continue, particularly Dior and Chanel.  Below, several classic, androgynous pieces from Dušan Paunovic, a line we were not familiar with until this week.

Franck Mura/WWD

Also seen in Paris, these styles from Viktor and Rolf peaking the Outrageous-o-Meter in the red zone.

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

Of course, each and every Fashion Week always brings its own brand of tragedy, to whit, more entrants in the When Pink Goes Bad sweepstakes.

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

These are all styles from Pierre Cardin, but there were many other candidates.

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There were a few lines line showing in Milan last week that we weren’t able to get to; Moschino‘s Spring 2011 Collection definitely had touches of nautical and preppy amid the red/white/blue palette.

Grosgrain ribbon was used to embellish shoes and repp tie silks were used on belts.

Below, bangles and other accessories backstage at Moschino.

Isabella De Maddalena/WWD

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Another Milan show we haven’t yet covered, DSquared2.

Twin brothers (and business partners) Dean & Dan Caten offered styles with a preppish slant.

More photos from WWD’s Davide Maestri.

To say we covet the gray flannel suit would be an understatement.

From Women’s Wear Daily’s review:

“The tailoring was terrific, as usual, here done in more leisurely cuts. It all had a stylish prepster vibe, which, by night, turned heavy on the men’s wear references, seen in le smokings and silk dresses with dickey inserts.”

We adore the modified dinner jacket shown above left; here is more exquisite formalwear.

Knowing that at Milan Fashion Week simply everyone wears black, let’s play a round of “Spot the Prep” in this picture from the DSquared2 show.

Name That Prep

Yeppers, it is the one and only Kiel James Patrick on the scene; hoping for some outstanding styles at the Milan shows, we dispatched our team of crack CPFCs (Certified Princess Fashion Correspondents) to Milan. Kiel was joined by the immensely talented and lovely Sarah Vickers, also clad in bright and vivid colors, no monochromatic black for this preppy pair.

Almost Exclusive to The Princess

Here Kiel is seen getting the scoop from one of the models.

On Assignment!

Kiel even took a video at the show, click here to see that slice of fashion bliss.  (We have it on good authority that a certain young designer’s merchandise was the talk of the town in Milan, our hats are off to Kiel and Sarah, the product line is looking terrific.)

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We have an interesting SOTT (Sign of the Times) today: because Louis Vuitton is concerned about running out of merchandise, the company’s stores in Paris are closing an hour earlier.

Louis Vuitton

From the Financial Times:

“Along with Vuitton’s other standalone Paris stores, the shop is trying to sell fewer products and preserve stock for Christmas.”

Hmmmm.

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And under our Sales & Savings heading, news that Neiman’s Last Call merchandise is now available online.

Last Call at Neiman Marcus

We haven’t done more than quickly skip through the online offerings, we hope to have a little more time to graze at the site later.  If you do pop in for a visit, do let us know what you think!

Today we shall leave you with a delightful Pretty in Pink pair from Tory Burch.

Tory Burch

October brings Breast Cancer Awareness month, 15% of proceeds from sales of the limited edition Rain Boots and Umbrella will go to the BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation), up to a total donation of $20,000.

On that note, g’bye until next time!

ADDITIONAL PHOTO CREDITS:

• Moschino: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
• DSquared2: Alberto Pellaschiar/AP
• DSquared2: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters
• DSquared2: Davide Maestri/WWD
• Anna Wintour: Benoit Tessier/Reuters
• Chloe show: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty