Pink Retreat draws Lilly Pulitzer fans to Worth Avenue, C. Orrico and Flagler Museum

The stream of women who poured into Worth Avenue's nooks and crannies Friday morning were unmistakable.

Their brightly colored clothes identified them immediately as fans of fashion brand Lilly Pulitzer, a brand founded just steps from where they walked as part of a tour of Worth Avenue.

The event was one of many lined up for the 500 Lilly Pulitzer fans who signed up for the fifth Pink Retreat, a colorful weekend that kicked off Thursday and continues through Sunday morning with events in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens.

The weekend, with presenting sponsor Discover The Palm Beaches, is a celebration of friendship and all things Lilly Pulitzer for those who attend, said founder Tosha Williams.

"Women from all over the country — I actually have somebody from Alaska this year — come and enjoy the sisterhood while all looking beautiful in our Lilly," she said.

Williams launched The Pink Retreat in 2017, organizing it each year — minus two years during the COVID-19 pandemic — from her home in Tennessee.

The retreat has evolved from a gathering of about 100 Lilly Pulitzer fans who met in Facebook groups dedicated to the brand, to the more than 500 people who attended this year to network with others who connect with the lifestyle that the brand represents: colorful, bright, exciting and warm, Williams said.

"I feel like walking sunshine, and it brightens my day," she said of the brand.

This year's event includes events in Palm Beach including the Worth Avenue walking tour, visits to C. Orrico boutique on South County Road and afternoon tea at the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum.

In West Palm Beach, the convention includes cookie-making classes at Ganache Bakery, catamaran rides, journaling and croquet lessons, West Palm Beach food tours, make-your-own mermaid mosaics, Latin and Caribbean dance classes, tassel-making with local fashion designer Amanda Perna and a silent disco.

A celebration sponsored by West Palm Beach and the Downtown Development Authority welcomed attendees Thursday night, The Gardens Mall will host a ladies night, the National Croquet Center hosts The Pink Party and there is a farewell brunch at the art gallery of Camilla Webster in West Palm Beach.

Pulitzer, who died in 2013 at age 81, settled in Palm Beach with her young family in the late 1950s. She began selling the citrus her husband grew in farms north of the island, in Indian River County and farther inland toward Lake Okeechobee, and at her juice stand on a corner off Worth Avenue.

In a story that has evolved into folklore over the years, Pulitzer decided to have her seamstress make brightly patterned shift dresses that would be a uniform for Pulitzer's hours working barefoot at the juice stand, with bright colors designed to mask the splashes of juice she accumulated throughout each day. Pulitzer expanded to a boutique in Via Mizner when the dresses she began selling to friends "took off like zingo," she once told a magazine reporter.

Events on the island Friday morning began with the walking tour of Worth Avenue led by Leslie Diver of Island Living, now in her 20th year offering tours of Palm Beach. Diver said she was shopping in town last week and alerted shopkeepers: "Get ready, The Pink Retreat is coming."

"It's a real girl thing, I think," she said of the gathering, as ladies dressed in Lilly Pulitzer prints surrounded her before the tour's start. Diver said the group's arrival during the off-season is a boon during the typically slow summer months.

"You never leave Palm Beach underwhelmed, and it's great to be a tour guide and show them this wonderful town," she said.

Her tour brought the group of about two dozen — one of several walking tours Diver led for The Pink Retreat — down Peruvian Avenue to Via Parigi, into Via Mizner, where attendees spotted Mona Lisa, the well-known Royal Dandie pig, who is known for her strolls along Worth Avenue. Diver explained some of Palm Beach's lesser-known history, including the Alligator Joe's tourist attraction that was at Worth Avenue's west end, and architect Addison Mizner's role in the town's development.

Jackie Hicks of Virginia took the walking tour as part of her first Pink Retreat. She heard about the convention through social media, and friends told her she needed to attend.

"I just love it," she said of Lilly Pulitzer. "It makes me feel good. I love the sunny colors."

Also Friday, C. Orrico on South County Road hosted Pink Retreat attendees for events called "Spilling the Juice," where sisters Colleen and Casey Orrico shared memories of their friendship with Lilly Pulitzer — later in life, Lilly McKim Rousseau after she remarried.

"These are fun, wild girls," Casey Orrico said, looking around her at the bustle of activity as women looked through clothing racks, chatted and sipped ice water and coffee. "Nobody's in black Lycra. Do you know how refreshing that is?"

Colleen, Casey and Kathie — their sister who was not able to be in Palm Beach this weekend — Orrico opened their store in 1985 in an 800-square-foot spot on the northeast corner of Brazilian Avenue and South County Road. Pulitzer encouraged them to move across the street into a larger space, which she gutted for the sisters' shop — which was the Lilly Pulitzer flagship when the brand relaunched in the mid-1990s.

"This was an office," Casey Orrico said, with Colleen adding, "There were cubicles all along one wall."

Within a year, the sisters bought the building from Pulitzer, who happily sold it to them at a great price, they said.

"She always supported us," Casey Orrico said.

When they received their first shipment of Lilly Pulitzer items during the brand's relaunch, the clothes from the 16 boxes delivered to C. Orrico never made it to hangers or shelves, they said.

"Within a day and a half, it was gone," Casey Orrico. "We'd never seen anything like it."

The love of Lilly has become a generational passion, with women handing down the appreciation for the brightly colored clothes and their soft muslin linings to their daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters.

The designer's daughters have done that themselves, sharing their mother's vibrant vision with their other children and grandchildren. Liza and Minnie Pulitzer also still live on the island, and recently partnered with the Lilly Pulitzer company to create a capsule collection, Barefoot in Paradise, in honor of their mother and the brand's 65th anniversary. It's a call back to their near-lifelong involvement with the clothing line, after each had a collection named after them in their youth.

Lily Leas Ferreira, Pulitzer's granddaughter and author of the children's book "Life and Lilly: A Palm Beach Adventure," came to C. Orrico on Friday morning to talk about her book and share her memories with Pink Retreat attendees.

"I feel like I grew up in this store," she said, smiling. "The Orrico sisters are like family."

She and Casey Orrico spoke to the crowd to share some memories of Lilly Pulitzer, talking about her love of entertaining and her passion for helping animals.

"It's all lore, it sounds like," Ferreira said. "She was more magic than I could ever describe."

Rachel Crawford of Largo wore her 1980s vintage Lilly Pulitzer shift to C. Orrico on Friday morning, with a pink and green Lilly bandanna in her hair. She attended the first Pink Retreat and has been to all but one since.

"There's a sisterhood that comes along with it," Crawford said of The Pink Retreat. She's a traveling nurse, and she's found community through the social media groups that have formed among Lilly Pulitzer's fans.

"It's really special," she said, noting that when she goes to a new city for work, sometimes for three months at a time, she has a built-in friend group. "Tosha (Williams) paved the way for all of this."

One of the highlights of The Pink Retreat weekend, Williams said, is afternoon tea at the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum. The museum opens its doors for The Pink Retreat each summer, even though it does not offer tea in the off-season, she said. It's become one of the most-beloved events offered during the weekend.

This was the first Pink Retreat for Heather Borgese of Hallandale, who learned about it through social media. She's a relatively new Lilly Pulitzer fan, and just bought her first piece of Lilly clothing this past weekend, she said.

She was excited to meet other women who love the brand and its colorful clothing, and the lineup of events sealed the deal for her, with a catamaran cruise, croquet and, of course, tea at the Flagler Museum.

"It doesn't get more girly than this, and what a beautiful city to be in," she said, adding that she's lived in Florida for four decades and Palm Beach "is the quintessential standard of luxury."

Jamie Arty of New York's Long Island went all-out for her first Pink Retreat, making fascinators for each big event and coordinating them with her favorite Lilly Pulitzer pieces. On Friday, she wore a fascinator with a fish that held a glittering blue plastic fish. Around the fish bowl, Arty placed decorations from her son's previous fish tank.

She's always been a fan of bright clothing, and Lilly Pulitzer's prints pulled her in. "I've been hooked ever since," Arty said.

This was also the first Pink Retreat for Vaia Galimanas and her 15-year-old daughter Ariadne Kalogritsas of Ontario, Canada. Galimanas fell in love with Lilly Pulitzer when she went to school in Boston and would pass the store on Newberry Street.

"It's kind of turned into an obsession," she said, sharing a photo of her three children, with her two daughters decked out in Lilly Pulitzer and her son in a colorful Vineyard Vines shirt.

While this was the first Pink Retreat for Michelle Strong from the Philadelphia area, her friend and fellow traveler Jill Flewitt is what Williams lovingly calls "an original," one of the people who attended the first Pink Retreat.

"The camaraderie, the colors, I enjoy it all," Strong said, smiling. "It's like a sisterhood."

Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Pink Retreat draws Lilly Pulitzer fans to Palm Beach landmarks