Life by the Sea

Binz, the culture of the seaside resort and the place where Coastmetics began

There are places where the sea is more than a backdrop; it sets the rhythm of life. Going down to the water in the morning, listening to the waves while everything else is still quiet. Sitting outside a little longer in the evening, watching the colours on the horizon. Salt in the air, sand in shoes, bags and showers. Even an ordinary walk becomes a small ritual.

Binz, on the island of Rügen, is one of those places. White villas, balconies and verandas line the streets, the promenade follows the beach and the pier draws the eye out towards the Baltic Sea.

It was here, in the seaside resort of Binz, that the idea that would later become Coastmetics first began to take shape on 2 September 2023. Perhaps it is no coincidence that it happened in a place whose history has reflected what draws people to the coast for more than a century.

The seaside resort as a place of longing

During the 19th century, Europe’s relationship with the coast began to change. Places previously shaped by fishing, agriculture and trade increasingly became travel destinations. Sea bathing, fresh air and time spent away from the cities developed into a new culture of travel and recreation.

Binz changed during this period, too. The town’s chronicles record occasional bathing guests from 1860, the first hotel near the beach opened in 1883, and in 1884 Binz was officially recognised as a seaside resort. Over the following decades, the Kurhaus, hotels, guesthouses and villas were built. A village by the coast became a place whose identity was increasingly connected to life by the sea.

This transformation can still be read in the townscape today.

The architecture of summer

Bäderarchitektur, or resort architecture, is less a single, clearly defined architectural style than a distinctive blend of historicist forms. Light façades, verandas, balconies and wooden ornamentation characterise the buildings of the Baltic seaside resorts. Their appearance is both light and elegant, an architecture that reflects the light and openness of the sea.

Inside and outside move closer together. Breakfast is eaten on the terrace, time is spent sitting on a veranda, and from the hotel it is only a few steps to the promenade and onwards to the beach. The day is shaped not only by the clock, but by light, weather and water.

The pier, too, has become a symbol of this relationship between place and sea. The present-day, 370-metre-long pier was inaugurated in 1994. It does not lead to another place, but stretches far out over the water, becoming one of the seaside resort’s defining landmarks.

Alongside it, beach chairs, dune paths and the long promenade are part of a culture that is about more than simply bathing. It is about the quiet moments in between: reading, breathing, watching, walking, feeling the gentle breeze, drying off after a swim, returning to the water once more in the evening.

From holiday to ritual

A holiday by the coast today differs in many ways from the early days of the seaside resorts. Yet one idea has remained constant: the sea changes the way we experience the everyday.

Water on the skin, a towel after swimming, sunlight on the back, the scent of sea, wood and salt, a walk with no particular destination – much of it seems unremarkable. Yet that is precisely where its special quality lies. The coast turns simple actions into small transitions: between activity and rest, between outside and inside, between movement and stillness.

This kind of awareness is closely connected to what Coastmetics understands as a ritual. Not a complicated sequence of steps, but a moment in which something everyday becomes more intentional. Care can be exactly such a moment.

The place where Coastmetics began

On 2 September 2023, the idea for Coastmetics first emerged on a terrace in Binz overlooking the Baltic Sea. It did not begin with a single cream or a particular ingredient. It began with the desire to take that feeling home: the softness of the skin after a swim in the Baltic Sea, the clarity and sense of calm, the feeling of wellbeing inside and out. It came from the absence of skincare brands built around exactly that – this particular place, this particular feeling.

It was the observation of just how much identity a coastline holds: in its plants and colours, its light, its architecture, its materials and the particular way people move and slow down there.

From this came a question: what if a skincare brand were inspired not only by the sea or a particular ingredient, but made these and other coastlines themselves the starting point for its products and story?

Three years later, this is exactly what has become a reality with Coastmetics and the Baltic Sea Collection as its first chapter. A feeling translated into a ritual, THE RITUAL. Intentional and effortless, care for skin and senses, with sea buckthorn connecting it to the landscape of Rügen and the Baltic coast.

Binz is not the whole story of Coastmetics. It is where it begins.

 

Sources & further reading

• Municipality Ostseebad Binz: Ortschronik. – On the development of Binz as a seaside resort, its official recognition in 1884 and the history of the pier.
• Tourismuszentrale Rügen: Information on Binz and resort architecture on Rügen. – On the cultural and architectural context of the Baltic seaside resorts.