Fashion/06.06.14

Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Sale

5/6/15 UPDATE: Have any questions about how to conquer the Lilly warehouse sale?! I just wrote a post entitled “How to Survive the Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Sale” with all of my tips, strategies, and past experiences regarding the sale! Check it out here! 🙂 Holy pink and green!!! The most wonderful time of the year just took place this past Wednesday at 5:00 in the…
5/6/15 UPDATE: Have any questions about how to conquer the Lilly warehouse sale?! I just wrote a post entitled “How to Survive the Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Sale” with all of my tips, strategies, and past experiences regarding the sale! Check it out here! 🙂

Holy pink and green!!! The most wonderful time of the year just took place this past Wednesday at 5:00 in the morning. It’s like Christmas in June and a favorite tradition of my mother’s… the Lilly Pulitzer Warehouse Sale. 


We arrived at 3 pm, approximately 14 hours before the doors opened. Too aggressive? Not for us. We settled in with our beach chairs, magazines, and my leftover Laduree macaroons I got the day before in from NYC (post to follow!). This year they had a huge tent set up right outside the warehouse for the people in line to camp out under and escape the elements. This tent became especially useful when it began to pour rain around 11 pm!! That’s when I decided to climb into the back of my mom’s car and get three hours of sleep. We prefer to view our Lilly sleepover as “glamping” and ignore the fact that it occurs in a parking lot in the middle of Pennsylvania.  



Here’s a closer look at my outfit for the sale. An old reversible Lilly lantern-printed skirt, a hot pink J. Crew tank (with a kelly green J. Crew cashmere sweater that I threw on in the morning) with some sparkly gold arm candy. And of course, pink Jack Rogers.
 For once in my life, I did not stand out at all for wearing an overly colorful outfit. 

{Remember this pink tassel bracelet from my “Loving This: Cathryn Ann Designs” post?!


This is what the line looked like from around the corner from the tent. Many of the people in the tents had traveled from distant states and had been there for days (talk about dedicated Lilly lovers…) We were in the first round of people to be let into the sale at 5am, so we estimated that we were in the top 150 people in line. 


Girls who Lilly Warehouse Sale together, stay together. 
Take a look at these darling ladies who turned the sale into a party! The night leading up to the sale can pretty much be summed up with Cards of Humanity, conversations about sororities, trips to Wawa, and four bags of Twizzlers. 


Finally at 4 am we were allowed to start lining up inside the warehouse. A DJ wearing a Lilly tie (what else??) played “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” as per my request and then “Turn Down for What” when the first group was allowed in at 5 am. Clearly, it was a party. 


I just loved the back of the shirts that the girls who worked the warehouse wore. Everything written on them is so true. I also love that it is all written in hashtags…


This is a just a glimpse of what the inside of the warehouse looks like. The boxes that say “Seconds” were the sample items. They were by far the least expensive because many were over produced, damaged, or old. There were almost no items over $30 in these boxes! So, naturally, the samples are the main attraction of the sale. 

(This is a blurry picture I took standing on top of a table in the sale.. seriously, anything goes during this sale!) 



A little over an hour into shopping, we all found each other and reconvened in a corner to start “sorting.” This entailed going through our HUGE pink bags piece by piece and making piles based on what we thought we wanted to try on. Here my mom is showing us a jacket. As you can imagine, a lot of opinion sharing, trading items, and ooo-ing and ahh-ing went on during this process. 


After a couple of more hours trying all of the clothing on, getting more and more selective with our “YES” pile, and going through the sale a second and third time around, we finally checked out around  9 am. 


At that point we had stood in line for hours, shopped for even longer, and were running on less than three hours of sleep. You would think that we would be completely burnt out and ready to head on back to Jersey, right?! No. Instead, my mom and I decided to go to the Lilly Pulitzer store at the King of Prussia Mall. Crazy, we know. They had a sale going on there, and we saw a lot of the things that were at the warehouse sale. The difference was that a dress on sale at the Lilly signature store was $159, whereas we bought that same dress for $30 at the warehouse sale. Talk about bargain shopping. But any excuse to stop by the King of Prussia Mall, and we will take it!



In all, we were very happy with our purchases. My mom got a couple of skirts and a maxi dress, we got my 8 year old cousin a bunch of shift dresses and cute pullovers, my boyfriend’s sister two adorable summer dresses, my big in Theta two dresses (one of them she has been talking about for months..) and my little sister an infinity scarf. I got a white strapless dress, two gorgeous tops (one of them is a hot pink Elsa top– I’m planning on wearing it on my birthday!) and some Theta accessories! 

I absolutely love the experience of the Lilly sale, the friends we went with, and the amazing deals we scored! Let me know if you went to the Lilly sale and how your experience was!

xxAmy