Oh, to grow up in Palm Beach, that moneyed sliver of sandy coquina where presidents and billionaires play and the punch-bright midcentury optimism of Pucci and Lilly Pulitzer has hardly faded. At least, that’s one version. The designer Christina Coniglio blossomed there in a slightly different one. No less charmed, perhaps, but more bohemian, she and her five sun-kissed siblings coming of age in the eighties, tumbling down the beach across from their home and into the Atlantic, collecting seashells for homespun art projects, biking a lakeside trail beneath the barrier island’s namesake palms, the progeny of coconuts that fell from the shipwrecked Providencia, Spain-bound from Havana in 1878. Her now late father was a beloved local restaurateur, her mother eventually a five-time mayor of Palm Beach.
The Coniglio name, then, means something there; Christina’s kaleidoscopic, cleverly executed Coniglio Palm Beach resort-wear and home brand promises it will soon mean something in many other elsewheres. There are frond prints, to be sure. And hibiscus blooms and banana leaves aplenty, cascading down gauze-thin mini- and maxidresses in glowing sunset silks and cottons, or on one of her signature, best-selling pareo wraparound skirts with a beguiling ruffle. “Print and color and rich botanicals,” she says, “are very much the heart and soul of me as a person.”
The looks—which also include blouses, pants, and button-downs—can be slipped on over a swimsuit for a day chasing children at the beach, or styled up for cocktails at the Breakers, just around the corner from Coniglio’s flagship studio-boutique, or even worn to bed. Even better, the pieces are designed to adjust up (to a size eighteen) and down in what’s known as “free-sizing,” allowing them to see the wearer through different stages of life and to be easily shared, even with the opposite sex. Especially for women, Christina says, “your weight fluctuates and things are constantly shifting.” Something she and her four sisters know firsthand—beyond trading and handing down clothing in childhood, they and their brother now have twenty-three children among them. “It’s also a more sustainable way of dressing,” she adds. “You don’t have to constantly reinvent your closet.”
This flexibility doesn’t stem from the one-size-fits-all volume for which caftans, those staples of resort wear, are known. The tailored silhouettes instead manage to be both sexy and as free-flowing as Christina’s beach-waved hair, fashion know-how she gained at the Savannah College of Art and Design and then mastered over sixteen years designing in New York for such brands as Calypso St. Barth and LoveShackFancy. When she and her husband, an industrial designer, decided to launch a new life for themselves and their young family in her hometown a couple of years ago, she found herself as inspired by Palm Beach’s aesthetic as she had been as a teenager, when she slipped into the “special little curated section” of her mother’s closet to “borrow” her vintage clothing. She was determined, with the Coniglio brand, to push those sensibilities into the present.
Now she and her team hand sketch each piece and print, which shift into darker jewel tones and solids for fall and winter. Then artisans in India, as well as sewers in Palm Beach, produce and embellish them, also all by hand. Earlier in 2025, she partnered with Androsia, a legacy Bahamas batik printer, on tabletop and home goods, and she’s also collaborated with Bloomingdale’s. Swimwear is in the chute, as is recruiting more Caribbean craftspeople. She has Coniglio outposts in other towns where resort wear often becomes everyday wear—Charleston, South Carolina, and Southampton, New York—full of bamboo-framed family photos and memorabilia. Asia is next on the horizon…