Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer, 81

MIAMI - Lilly Pulitzer, 81, a Palm Beach socialite turned designer whose tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s and later a fashion classic, died Sunday.

Ms. Pulitzer, who married into the newspaper family, got her start in fashion by spilling orange juice on her clothes. A rich homemaker with time to spare and a husband who owned orange groves, she opened a juice stand in 1959, and asked her seamstress to make dresses in colorful prints that would camouflage fruit stains.

The dresses hung on a pipe behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. The company's dresses, developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor, soon caught on.

"Lilly has been a true inspiration to us and we will miss her," according to a statement on the Lilly Pulitzer brand Facebook page.

Gale Schiffman of Quattlebaum Funeral & Cremation Services in West Palm Beach confirmed the death but did not know the cause.

Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Ms. Pulitzer, even wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow, and orange - the colors of a Florida vacation.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy . . . fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Ms. Pulitzer told the Associated Press in March 2009.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection, and a limited selection of menswear.

In 1966, the Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

Ms. Pulitzer retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, but remained a consultant for the brand.

Ms. Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y. In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize. They divorced in 1969. Her second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.