Style for a Steal: Lilly Pulitzer Edition

An email I often get asks about where to get preppy fashion for a discount. When you're a college kid or living on a budget, luxury goods are often out of our price range. This leads me to deal hunting!

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Today is the day ladies and gents! I'm going to start a series on where to find different preppy brands for less than full price! No guarantees, but I'll do my best. We're starting with Lilly Pulitzer today. More often than not, I'm donning the bright pinks and greens Lilly prominently features. I've been wearing Lilly since I could decide what I wanted to wear and I've worked the retail side of Lilly as well.

The best place to start is at your local Lilly Pulitzer store. There are both corporate Lilly stores as well as merchant-owned ones called "Signature Stores". Most likely, you'll find that your store has a great sale rack that you can check out. Maybe your state or town doesn't have a store? Pick up the phone and call another store! You'll find that most stores are more than happy to ship to a new customer! Click HERE for a map of all Lilly Pulitzer stores! Lilly P also just finished up a great "New Years Cheer" sale--be sure to hop on the mailing list to make sure you get emails of when big sales like this happen throughout the year.

For flash Lilly sales, Rue La La is a great place to start! TODAY there is a Lilly sale going on! Flash sales can sometimes be harder to track down since they have such a short duration. RLL typically has Lilly one or so a quarter, and items will be a little older, but if you have your eye on something, this is the place to look! You will need an invite to many of these flash sale websites. Get yours HERE!

Depending on where you live (or how much of a Lilly lover you are) the Lilly Pulitzer warehouse sale is another great option! The warehouse sale is a 3-day event held close to the Lilly headquarters in King of Prussia, PA where they are able to unload merchandise for Lilly lovers on a budget. Deals here are among the best! Scarves and shorts--items that you hardly ever find on sale--can sometimes even be tracked down. I've been to the sale twice and each time we've been very successful. My trips and the loot I was able to score were documented here in 2010 and here in 2011.

6pm.com is also a great resource for discounted Lilly merchandise! I shared this site with my Mom who was looking for a co-worker of hers shopping for her daughter and I referred them to 6pm. The prices do change on this site though, so do know that going into shopping. I have purchased a few things from 6pm and the shipping is reliable and fair. The returns are as well--I made a return recently and had no problems. They are a company owned by Zappos (read about it here), so that really comes as no surprise.

I'm very hesitant to say eBay is a good place to find Lilly items. This can be very hit or miss and I'd say it's far more often a miss. eBay items have very little guarantees and you have to trust the seller. What's REALLY stopping someone from saying their gently used item is "NWOT"  (new without tags)? You'd like to think that sellers are honest, but I worry very much about the quality of items on eBay. I would venture to say that eBay is good for finding SPECIFIC pieces that you might be looking for that are very old or harder to find. 

These are just a few ideas of where to start your Lilly bargain hunting! Where do you find your Lilly steals?

xxKatie

Outfit of the Day: Preppy Profesh: Pink Blazer

Y'all know how much I love my pink blazer! It's rare when I buy a really TRENDY clothing item, but when I saw this I couldn't pass it up. My mom actually got it for me for Christmas and I LOVE it! I wore it to my first day of school last semester after my birthday and have worn it a few times since then--I don't want to over wear it, but I tried it over a professional dress and it worked great!

I was doing an interview on campus for a position within our Dance Marathon at USC. I think I was probably over-dressed by the time that I got to the interview, but I felt so much confidence in this outfit.

I paired my pink blazer with my Lilly Pulitzer Collins dress that I got at the warehouse sale! The print is among my favorites and the cut is great because it's both conservative for work, but still lovably Lilly!

I paired it with these gold basket weave wedges that are super comfortable and appropriate. The metallic is too fun as well!

Do you usually wear dresses or suits for interviews? Have you interviewed for anything recently?

Outfit of the Day: Pink Blazer

January 10 by letsbepreppy featuring faded jeans

Pink Blazers seem to be the "it" thing--they're all over Pinterest! I saw this blazer while we were shopping before Christmas at H & M. My jaw just about dropped! My mom wasn't as big of a fan as I was, but I knew of a few outfits that it would be PERFECT with! My first inkling was to pair it with a white button-down like this. Then my mind drifted to all the other combinations I could pair it with! One dress came to mind IMMEDIATELY:

Right?! How perfect is that?!

Anyway, I've been dying for nice weather and an event that warrants such a formal, structured dress and a blazer so I can pair them together!!

Do you like the pink blazer trend? Do you have one? If so, what do you wear it with?

xxKatie

Endless Summer Summer Sale

This Lilly Pulitzer sale was among the best I've seen before! There was a TON of inventory, fun surprises and great deals to be found! Did you get anything?

Here are some of my favorites and picks for best deals:

Abella Dress (I was surprised to see this again!)

Blake Dress

Eve Dress

Finn Shift (How great is this in navy?!)

Harper Dress

Jonah Dress

$39 Murfee Scarves? That's better than the Warehouse sale!!

They even tossed in some McKims too!

And even table cloths!! Did any of y'all get one?

Did you get any great deals? Snag any steals? Fill me in!!!!!

Be sure to enter yesterday's Sassy Palmetto GIVEAWAY too!!

xxKatie

Weekly Gratitude

So somehow I forgot to do this last week. RUDE. Here we go making up for it all!

1. Thanks to Amanda, Amy and Skyler for all having birthdays this weekend. Y'all RULE.

2. Thanks to all of them having a Lilly-esque theme. It was great to get dressed up and have everyone lookin' great!

3. Thanks to Bayside Bride for providing me with so much these past two weeks! So much to work on, look forward to, and plan for the rest of the summer.

4. Thanks to Scotty McCreary for recording "For Once in My Life". It's slowing becoming one of my American Idol faves!

5. Thanks to the Lilly Warehouse sale--you got me a bunch of steals to be proud of for the rest of the summer and into the school year since I got a few transitional pieces too!

6. Thanks to Country music for being better in the summer.

7. Thanks to all the Etsy shops that have made this birthday season fun. I don't want to give anything away yet since it hasn't arrived, but thanks in general.

8. Thanks to Costa del Mar for reaching out to me. Y'all look for a post coming up soon to hear all about it! Doin' big things this week!

9. Thanks to everyone who's been reading this week. I think we're all SO busy and the comments and tweets me so much!!

10. Thanks to Polyvore who told me I've been in both the 77th and 74th most viewed profiles on the site!!! SO exciting!!!

xxKatie

Sale Success!!

Considering I had no idea what to expect in this year's sale, I was excited to see what it had in store! We went to it the first day but wanted no part in the waiting around for the doors to open with all the 5AM-ers. We leisurely got up, picked up Miss Skyler and headed to Pennsylvania around 8:30 and hit the convention center around 11. After 45 very quick minutes in line, we made it in! The three of us (my sister, Skyler, and  me obviously) had been peering in, scoping it out and picking a plan of attack. Do we stay together? Do we split up? How will we try things on? All necessary questions to be answered at that kind of event. These customers do not joke around! We shopped around for about 45 more minutes and reconvened to try things on. The line for the fitting room was INSANE! Instead we found a spot along a wall where everyone else was trying things on. No shame, we all tried on our items slightly shielding ourselves, slightly checking out what everyone else was trying on. We tried on tons of stuff and since we were in our own make-shift fitting room solely relied on each other to say what things looked like. Nixing about 3/4 of our bags full of Pink and Green treats, we all narrowed it down to our purchases! Here's what I managed to scoop up:

Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Steals! by letsbepreppy featuring Lilly Pulitzer scarves

I was pretty excited! We all then headed over to checkout where we ran into Mr. Pink and Green himself, Scott who was directing everyone to 1 of 30 or so checkout registers. We promptly headed to register #2 and checked out, making some smalltalk with the WONDERFUL workers at the sale! They were so chipper and friendly for being there since 4:30am! I couldn't believe it, I would have been famished! They helped us grab all our items and see us out.

All in all we had a wildly successful day and each of us walked away with a few new wardrobe additions! What did y'all get? What times did you go, and what how long did you have to wait in line?

Good luck to everyone going on days 2 and 3!!

xxKatie

Off to the Land of Lilly!

Thinking of y'all while I'm here today!

xxKatie

"Summer Lovin' Had Me A Blast..."

Well known info, but if you weren't aware, Grease is one of (if not my #1) my favorite movies. I know all of the songs by heart (which will surprise no one) and love the cheesy dancing. I used to pretend I was Sandy and was dancing the last scene with Danny Zuko a la this scene:



When I was younger I didn't understand a lot of the undertones but it still ranks in my top 3 movies ever. I am so lucky to be having such a busy summer! All I've been able to do is some summer lovin'! Today is one of just a few days I've had off from work, but I've had such a wonderful time working and being productive! Between school, work and errands, time off is few and far between. Today I'll be studying but Thursday I'm off to the warehouse sale! SO EXCITING!

Will I have the pleasure of seeing anyone else there as well? Let me know so I can keep my eyes out!!

xxKatie

Outfit of the Day: Wearing the Warehouse Sale!

June 15 by letsbepreppy featuring Old Navy shorts

Today I wore the halter that I got from the Warehouse sale!! I couldn't find any photos of the top that I got online to publish to Polyvore, so I had to substitute in mine. The top I actually got is in this print: 

I totally love it and it is so comfortable! The delicate jacquard fabric makes the print almost look shiny! Tomorrow I plan on wearing my Nadja dress from the sale since we're supposed to be in the middle of some ridiculous heat wave, just like all my SC friends! (Miss you!)

Also today I stopped into Target to get a pair of shoes. As my mom reads this she'll be a little mad, but I promise they're cute mom! They're cork wedges. I never wear heels. Ever. I'm already tall enough and I never gravitate towards more height, but something about these I couldn't resist. A few nights ago, my friend Mary Claire and I had eaten dinner together at our favorite Thai restaurant and then we went to Target so she could buy work clothes. I ended up trying on a pair of Merona sandals and I told myself that I wouldn't buy them that night. I waited two days with the mentality that if they're still there I can indulge the $24.99 pricetag. Well they were still there!! Yay!!

Not only are these totally cute (and will go with a few my recent VS purchases) they are so comfortable. You have to try them on and they feel like super well made designer shoes. You would never guess by the feel that they were from Target!!! I'm really excited and I'll be sure to post my outfit with them! It was yet another time that being Bigfoot totally paid off. The only sizes they had left in-store were 10's and 11's. (For everyone's reference, they run small!)

I hope everyone is beginning to enjoy their own Warehouse sale purchases like me!!

xxKatie