Lilly Pulitzer dresses were "really wearable only by the few who were so rich that they could afford to have bad taste."

Says the NYT in the obituary for Lilly Pullitzer, who built a "fashion empire" out of "tropical print shift dresses and lighthearted embrace of jarring color combinations like flamingo pink and apple green." Lilly was born into wealth and married into more wealth. She had 3 children and a nervous breakdown.

“I went crazy. I was a namby-pamby; people always made decisions for me. The doctor said I should find something to do.”

The family estate included citrus groves, so she opened a juice stand with another woman, and juice stains inspired the print dresses.

At first, her dresses were seen almost exclusively in Palm Beach circles, and then globally when her wealthy friends began appearing in the designs in magazines. Jacqueline Kennedy, a classmate from Miss Porter’s, wore a Pulitzer dress while on vacation: “It was made from kitchen curtain material and people went crazy,” Ms. Pulitzer said. “They took off like Zingo.”

Zingo? The (unlinkable) OED defines "zingo" as an interjection that means the same thing as "zing." Historical examples:

1914   Sat. Evening Post 17 Jan. 7/1   Just when he was bursting with happiness because he was going to be a real big leaguer and one of us—zingo! he was back where he started.
1941   B. Schulberg What makes Sammy Run? ii. 32   It didn't take nearly this long to think. It went zingo, just a look....

There's a word that I never noticed was a word. But how about these dresses?

“Puritan ethics of balance and value,” as Laura Jacobs wrote in a Vanity Fair profile of Ms. Pulitzer in 2003. They were accessible to most, but really wearable only by the few who were so rich that they could afford to have bad taste. A minidress of green peacocks dancing with merry seashells is not for just anyone.

Here. You can access this but can you wear it? Do you know the difference?