Perspectives: Alexa Pulitzer

Behind her fanciful world of crown-bedecked animals, feathered friends, and underwater creatures, stationer Alexa Pulitzer has built a small empire as a skilled illustrator and hardcore businesswoman. Her intricate, hand-drawn designs, including her well-known King Gator, grace the pages of notepads, gift cards, party supplies, wallpaper, and even t-shirts and purses—sold not only in Louisiana, but around the world. 

Raised by a family that includes a painter, a photographic journalist, ceramicists, and a father with a profound love for jazz, Pulitzer’s artistic roots run deep.  

“Creativity is definitely cultivated in my upbringing,” said Pulitzer. “If you’re not raised by creatives, you don’t understand you can earn by that. Lots of parents wish their kids would have more traditional work. For me, there was never any discussion other than art. I was lucky I grew up with that understanding.”

She traces her family’s artistic entrepreneurs back to her grandfather Sam C. Pulitzer, who, along with his brother Emmanuel, grew up in the former Jewish orphanage on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. After attending the Isidore Newman School as children, the brothers were sent out on their own at the ripe age of thirteen—moving into a boarding house in the Lower Garden District. To pay their bills, they worked on the rail road and picked up odd jobs. Then, one day Pulitzer’s grandfather cut a tie out of his brother’s brand-new suit and impressed the world by wearing it for a week without garnering a single wrinkle. 

The secret stemmed from the wool and polyester mix, which helped the brothers launch their necktie business, the Wembley Tie Company, in 1925. As their success grew, the brothers expanded their business by buying the New York high-end neckwear company Countess Mara, and by the 1960s was one of the largest makers of men’s neckwear in the world. 

Fast-forward to Pulitzer’s childhood in the 1970s, and you find a little girl raised in the Wembley (Pulitzer’s father Arthur and his brother took over the business in 1968) factory art department, living and breathing every aspect of design and printing on a daily basis. 

“On the first floor of the necktie factory, there was a print shop where salesmen would make swatch guards. I grew up in that print shop and around the factory, where I learned how to take raw goods and make something,” said Pulitzer.

She left New Orleans to attend high school at New York's The Masters School, and from there, moved to Italy to work with the most esteemed printers in the world, including Ratti and Dante Prini. Returning home to work for the family business, Pulitzer found her complicated, high-end designs tossed in the trash because they would not sell in Wembley’s mainstream market. Sifting through her photos taken during her time in Italy, she started printing them onto postcards, and, at the urging of a friend, brought them to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), where she landed her first order for stationery. After that, she turned her discarded illustrations into notepads, and began doing some design work for friends, and the business grew.

“I never thought I’d become a stationer,” said Pulitzer, who is now celebrating twenty-seven years in the trade. “When I went to Italy, I learned every aspect of making couture. Printing on silk is very similar to printing on paper—you’re still printing on a flat surface. Because of my upbringing, I figured out something to do by myself on my own. It’s an incredibly good feeling to know I created something on my own.” 

In 1995, she started her stationery company as a side business while still designing neckwear as her day job. Two years later when her family sold Wemco (the name was changed in the 1980s, combining Wembley with Countess Mara) to its competitor, Randa—Pulitzer purchased the company’s first-floor print shop and invested in her business full-time. She spent the next several years juggling the many hats of a business-owner, from creating new designs and running the shop to traveling to New York and Italy for sales for Randa. This was Pulitzer’s life until she sold her shop in 2003, worked for a friend at Leontine Linens for a year, and then decided to go out on her own in 2004. Without the travel and management responsibilities, she was suddenly free to focus purely on design and sales. 

“Today, I use a print shop housed in my family’s old sportswear factory. I have a really small operation, with no storefront by design, but I have a footprint all over the world,” said Pulitzer, whose work has appeared in high-end retail stores such as Anthropologie, Bergdorf Goodman, Tory Burch, and Pottery Barn—as well as small independent retailers around the globe. She hires single moms to help with order fulfillment and quality control, wanting to give her staff as much flexibility as they need. Between wholesale and e-commerce, they shuffle through a large inventory, much of which is housed in her home and the local print shop. The rest of Pulitzer’s day is spent creating designs for private label collections for museums and national brands, business identities, and wedding logos—as well as custom invitations of all kinds.  “I do private label for NOMA, the Biltmore, the National World War II Museum, the Historic New Orleans Collection, and Tory Burch. I also do a lot of illustrations of people’s animals. People love their animals,” she laughed. 

Pulitzer proudly prints all her stock in New Orleans, another quality passed down from her grandfather: “Inside my family’s necktie company, on every floor it said, ‘Proudly Made in America by quality-minded Americans.’ I could print at a fraction of the price in China, but I print here because I want to have a product made in my own city.” 

She also believes deeply in giving back by helping others, she said. She’s introduced several of her artist friends to Anthropologie and has started a new collaboration with BENE handbags, where all profits benefit Preservation Hall. 

“It’s an Italian-made handbag collection designed with a New Orleanian (Ellie Schwing) who lives in Rome,” gushed Pulitzer. “Everything in Italy is divinely made, and I have success in a new product. I also love doing this with another New Orleanian.”

She admitted, though, that her biggest passion lies in another form of art—live music. Her father, who was president of the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, immersed her in the world of jazz. When the Anthropologie sales paid off, Pulitzer bought a party house and created a beautiful, salon-style room during her renovation. She’s often found hosting jazz salons and sits on Preservation Hall’s Foundation Board, where she’s become close friends with many of the older musicians. 

During Jazz Fest in 2022, she hosted a young prodigy from Miami and introduced him to other musicians in the city. “He was a beautiful young soul who got to play with his heroes. I think how I was raised and got to work with all the best Italian mills. I wouldn’t be who I am without the undivided attention of older, successful people who shared their knowledge. I like to pay it forward.” 

See more of Pulitzer’s work at alexapulitzer.com.