So much bright, pink clothing, all in one place. For the target audience - primarily, wealthy suburbanites - a trip to a Lilly Pulitzer store can feel like a Palm Beach vacation. "I've never seen so much Lilly in one place," gushed Miriam Cash, 45, of East Goshen as she browsed the Lilly Pulitzer shop in Ardmore's Suburban Square recently. "I passed by the store a few times, but wouldn't let myself come in" - for fear of buying too much, Cash said.

After shutting all of its stores two decades ago and then reviving itself in the 1990s as a supplier of resort-wear to boutiques, department stores, and country-club shops, Lilly Pulitzer has begun reopening its own stores in locations where the rich and preppy congregate. Last fall, two stores that showcase the colorful women's clothing line opened in Ardmore and in the Promenade at Sagemore in Marlton. Another opened in Lyndhurst, Ohio, last month. Six more are planned for Florida, Texas, Illinois and New York this year.

"We are not about being present in every market," said James Bradbeer, president of Lilly Pulitzer's parent company, King of Prussia-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc. "We are very specific and selective about where we offer our product." The line's prices fit its target demographic: affluent women age 25 to 40. A signature cotton shift dress sells for $162. A spaghetti-strap dress with a ruffled hemline is $250, and a polo T-shirt is $70. Sugartown decided to open stores again to showcase the entire brand, which includes linens. The new stores average 3,500 to 4,000 square feet. Sugartown intends to open an average of five Lilly Pulitzer stores a year for the next five years. The privately held company would not disclose revenue, but said it has grown 20 percent annually for the last five years. Vanity Fair reported that Lilly Pulitzer had more than $40 million in sales in 2003, and a company spokeswoman said the figure probably was "accurate at the time."

In 2000, the King of Prussia headquarters had 55 employees. Today, the company says it has 140 workers at its 100,000-square-foot facility, which includes its distribution center. The brand was founded in 1960 by its namesake, Lilly Pulitzer, the first wife of Herbert "Peter" Pulitzer, grandson of journalism's Joseph Pulitzer. It began accidentally, while she operated a juice stand in Palm Beach using lemons and oranges from her husband's citrus groves. To mask juice stains, she created what would become her signature: colorful sleeveless shift dresses. Soon, affluent women in Palm Beach were wearing the shifts, and more than 30 stores sprang up around the country. By the 1980s, however, monochrome power suits were in, cheerful resort wear was out, and Lilly Pulitzer filed for bankruptcy protection in the early 1980s.

For the next decade, manufacturing ceased. In 1993, Bradbeer and Scott Beaumont, two Main Line-bred friends with childhood memories of the Lilly Pulitzer lifestyle, decided to bring back the line. They contacted Pulitzer and bought the rights to her name. Now 73, she "remains a strong influence on the brand," according to company literature, but is no longer involved in the business. Sugartown revived the brand by getting it into high-end retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's; Bradbeer said the merchandise is now sold in about 100 department stores nationwide.

But could its upper-crust orientation be too limiting? Perhaps, says David Morrison, president of TWENTYSOMETHING Inc., a Philadelphia-based consulting firm that focuses on young adult trends. He thinks Sugartown should [consider] marketing Lilly Pulitzer beyond its target demographics. "They're selling the preppy, Main Line, Palm Beach dream, which tends to skew Caucasian, but they might want to speak to minorities, too," Morrison said.

Lilly fan Candace Balch, 27, of Haverford, who browsed the Ardmore store recently for a gift for her niece, was just happy to find a store with an extensive Lilly assortment. "I love a classic look," she said, "and I think that's where you should invest your money."