Every girl is a coastal girl
An interview with founder Dionne Schneider on girlhood, Worth Avenue, and why ten percent of every sale goes back out the door.
Palm Chic sat down with our founder, Dionne Schneider, to talk about what Coastal Girls was built to be — and why it was never only about the clothes.
Dionne grew up in southern Indiana with two sisters and a brother, pricing up their parents' clothes and playing at running a New York department store. Years later, after a career in marketing, business and medical devices — an industry she describes as very male-dominated, with few women to look to — she went looking for something different. As she put it to her sister: we need to start our own store where it's about girlhood.
You could be very chic and still be good to people… and help women move forward.
Dionne Schneider, Founder
Today the boutique carries pieces from designers around the world, across a wide range of prices, chosen for women who have already seen and bought a great deal. When she and her sisters landed on the name, they hadn't much considered that they would get older — so instead of changing it, they grew into what it meant.
Every girl's a coastal girl. You could be 100, or you can be eight.
Dionne Schneider, Founder
Giving back matters here as much as the clothes. Ten percent of sales goes to charitable causes as a matter of course rather than the occasional fundraiser — the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Implanting Hope, and autism causes, each of them close to the family. Her nephew's autism diagnosis started it; her husband's surgical work for people who could not afford care deepened it; her son's ulcerative colitis brought the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation in.
I believe you need to do something for humanity every day.
Dionne Schneider, Founder
Looking ahead, Dionne hopes Coastal Girls stays a Palm Beach staple while becoming known first for its humanitarian work — the philanthropy number one, she says, and the store number two.
