Every Girl is a Coastal Girl: An Interview With Dionne Schneider

When people think of a Worth Avenue boutique, they probably picture beautiful clothes, dressed-up customers, and classic Palm Beach glamour. Coastal Girls Co. has all of that, but the store was created to be about more than fashion. In an interview with its founder, Dionne Schneider, I got an inside look at the values behind the store: giving back, supporting women, and helping customers feel confident. As she explained, “You could be very chic and still be good to people…and help women move forward.”

Dionne’s love of fashion began while growing up in southern Indiana with two sisters and a brother. She and her sisters would take their parents’ clothes, put prices on them, and pretend they were running their own department store. “We played… like we were New York department stores every day,” she told me. What started as a childhood game eventually turned into a lasting love of fashion and retail.

Years later, after working in marketing, business, and the medical-device industry, Dionne found herself wanting to return to something that inspired her. Her experience working in what she described as a very male-dominated world also made her think more seriously about the importance of women supporting other women. She remembered feeling that there were not many female mentors around her and began imagining a different kind of environment. “We need to start our own store where it’s about girlhood,” she recalled telling her sister. That idea eventually became Coastal Girls.

Today, Coastal Girls carries unique pieces from designers around the world, with a range of price points. Dionne explained that many of her customers are well-traveled women who have already seen and bought a lot, so she tries to find pieces that feel unique and memorable. “We just try to find pieces that are fun, different, not found anywhere else,” she said.

At the same time, the store is meant for women of all ages. Dionne laughed about how, when she and her sisters first came up with the name Coastal Girls, they did not really think about the fact that they would eventually get older. Instead of changing the name, though, they came to embrace what it represented. “Every girl’s a coastal girl. You could be 100, or you can be eight,” she said.

For Dionne, fashion should also be fun. She remembers Palm Beach as a place where people dressed up more often and where people-watching was part of the experience. She believes younger people are helping bring some of that excitement around getting dressed up back. “It is your generation that is bringing the fabulous back,” she told me. As someone who loves getting dressed up, I was happy to hear it. As Dionne put it, “It puts a little sparkle in the day.”

Giving back, however, is just as important to Coastal Girls as fashion. The company donates 10 percent of its sales to charitable causes as part of its everyday business, rather than limiting its philanthropy to occasional events. “I believe you need to do something for humanity every day,” Dionne explained.

That commitment is also personal. Her family’s experiences helped shape many of the causes Coastal Girls supports. Her nephew’s autism diagnosis first inspired the family to give back to autism-related causes. Later, her husband’s work providing free surgeries to people who could not afford them reinforced her belief in using what you have to help others. When her son developed ulcerative colitis, the family also became involved with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.

For Dionne, the goal is not necessarily to make one enormous difference every day, but to make sure the business is consistently thinking beyond itself. “You also just want to go to sleep at night and feel like you’ve done something,” she said. That philosophy seems to shape Coastal Girls just as much as the clothing on its racks.

Looking toward the future, Dionne hopes Coastal Girls remains a Palm Beach staple while also becoming known for something even bigger than its fashion. She wants to continue growing the company’s online presence, but her biggest goal is for its humanitarian and philanthropic work to stand out first. “I hope that’s number one, and then the store is number two,” she said.

Coastal Girls shows that style, kindness, and community do not have to exist separately. A boutique can be fashionable while also supporting women and giving back to causes that matter. And, as Dionne has learned since choosing the name years ago, being a Coastal Girl is about much more than your age—or even what you wear.