Lilly Pulitzer Is Hungry for the Future. Its Spring 2026 Collection, Though, Is Reaching Back Into the Archives.

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The seaplane whizzing above Lilly Pulitzer‘s spring 2026 runway show, staged at Key West’s classy, upscale Casa Marina hotel, was no coincidence. The Lilly team — detail-obsessed and lighthearted all at once — used the opening detail to honor one of their brand founder’s most iconic moments, when Pulitzer is seen dashing out of a just-landed plane, circa 1963, with multiple fabric swatches in hand.

While the grand entrance’s significance went over the heads (literally and figuratively) of many of the show’s front-row attendees, it was clearly taken straight from the archives, just like the SS26 Lilly Pulitzer launch at large. The label’s Vintage Vault is as extensive as you can imagine, with many of the original (and now-reissued) prints having been hand-painted right in Key West, making the presentation a kind of homecoming. The Vault goes all the way back to 1962, a few years after the label hit the ground running out of Palm Beach, Florida, 200-plus miles north of the Keys — a location that influenced the brand’s aesthetic footprint in no insignificant way.

Lilly Pulitzer’s latest, Vintage Vault–informed project was punctuated by over 80 distinct looks, each one a union between the brand’s 66-year legacy and the kinds of silhouettes one is likely to come across while scrolling on TikTok in 2025. But Mira Fain, creative director at Lilly Pulitzer, is cautious when it comes to using the word “trendy.”

“ We’re always ‘antenna up’ for trends and what’s happening out there, but if leopard prints are trending, we tend to translate them into huge lion heads. We do it very much in our own way, honoring how Lilly would’ve most likely done it,” Fain tells WWD. “When I put out something new, I think ‘How would she feel about this? Is this just repeating what she’s done or is it taking the brand and her name forward?’” 

The collection is rooted in the brand’s creations from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, so Fain’s immediate instinct was to preserve and uplift all this history. That being said, there was no shortage of “fresh takes” scattered throughout the spring 2026 assortment, beyond the aforementioned lion heads.

“We reworked  a lot of the scales and colorways of the prints,” Fain shares. “We also translated some of the trims into touches of gold.”

So too will you find what Fain calls “engineered layouts” amidst the pieces — featuring performance fabric compositions with special properties like UPF and moisture-wicking capabilities.

As for who the “Lilly Pulitzer woman” of the 21st century is? Not necessarily a socialite who resides in a resort-style community and grabs lunch with her girlfriends at the country club each day. Lilly Pulitzer’s chief executive officer Michelle Kelly posits that, immediate associations aside, it’s really anyone who wishes to celebrate life’s “happy times” while dressing up in a way that’s nothing short of exuberant.

 ”What is someone wearing on a great spring break today? It’s different from what someone would’ve worn on a family vacation back in the seventies, but you can still envision it,” Kelly says. “What’s that happy moment and how does it translate to 2026?  How do we make something that she’s never seen before yet that she’ll know is Lilly?”

In the context of spring 2026, you’ll know it’s a Lilly when you gaze at a jacket’s bright-green colorway, take in the bursting florals featured front and center on a shift dress, and witness the overall emphasis on high-quality compositions (think geometric crochet embroidery, sharp hemlines, and the like). But don’t overlook everything that’s unexpected here, too: from the deconstructed, artfully woven midi skirts to the separates made for men (Lilly Pulitzer revived its men’s apparel line this past February) that put minimalist polos in conversation with more-is-more, color-happy trouser styles.

Halter-neck maxi dresses in the collection appear alongside the kind of bouclé jackets and skirt suits you might spot on a Lilly admirer back in the ’70s. The “fresh takes” Fain mentioned are also evident as ever in looks ranging from a matching bikini top and miniskirt ensemble to a one-piece swimsuit styled with an oversized blazer and drop earrings. Tropical settings, after all, are a vital part of the Lilly Pulitzer story, even though its heirloom-worthy pieces have been worn in most concrete jungles around the world by now.

The spark behind it all, Lilly Pulitzer herself, died in 2013 at the age of 81. Fain, though, seeks to honor her inimitable spirit in what she ideates for the brand: “[Lilly] always said, ‘Do what feels good. Just don’t look back.’ It’s all about emotional connection.”

In other words, the unapologetic authenticity, wittiness, and marvelous sense of humor that those who had the privilege of knowing Pulitzer valued most about her are still the “through line” in everything the label produces to date, per Fain.

What thrills Fain and Kelly about the next five years?  

“We’re having so much fun right now, and I hope others feel this way too,” Kelly says.  ”We’re talking about the archival revival, but at the same time we’ve also done what I would call a modernization. We’ve updated our brand identity and did a whole deep dive on our store designs and store experience; our website was redesigned and relaunched back in the spring. It feels like all of these things coming together are more than enough to power at least the next five years. But we’re thinking the next 65 years!”

“ It’s a cleared runway ready for takeoff,” Fain adds in regards to the future, after name-dropping global expansion.

The sea plane allusion, like all of Lilly Pulitzer’s carefully developed references, once again sticks the landing.

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Meet the Author

Stacia Datskovska is a Senior Commerce Writer at WWD. Previously, she worked at ELLE DECOR as an assistant digital editor, covering all things luxury, culture, and lifestyle through a design lens. Her bylines over the past five years have appeared in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Teen Vogue, Boston Globe, Food & Wine, and more. Prior to joining ELLE DECOR, Datskovska learned the ins and outs of e-commerce at Mashable, where she tested products, covered tentpole sales events, and curated gift guide roundups. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international relations. Datskovska regularly reports on new, not-to-miss collection releases from major labels, Lilly Pulitzer included.