Shinola
- Headquarters
- Detroit, MI
- Manufacturing
- Detroit, MI · Peru (Woven Alpaca Wool Blanket)
- Categories
- watches-and-jewelry · leather-goods-and-bags
Shinola was started in 2011 by Tom Kartsotis, the founder of Fossil, under a parent called Bedrock Manufacturing that also owns Filson. The name was bought from a defunct shoe-polish brand, and the company set up on the fifth floor of the Argonaut Building in Detroit’s New Center — the old General Motors research building, now the College for Creative Studies — where it opened a watch factory in 2012 and a leather factory in 2014. It says it has assembled more than a million watches there since.
The watches are what the mark is for. Shinola’s own product pages say every movement is assembled and tested in the Detroit factory “from Swiss and imported parts,” with Ronda of Switzerland named as the movement partner, and the about page puts hand assembly of timepieces and the sewing of leather straps in the same building. The second mark as the tier is defined: final assembly here, the components from elsewhere.
That is also how the Federal Trade Commission read it. In 2016 the agency closed an inquiry into Bedrock’s “Where American is Made” slogan after finding that certain watches were made from materials that were 100 percent imported and certain belts more than 70 percent so. The company dropped the slogan, redesigned its casebacks and hangtags, and qualified its claims with the “Swiss and imported parts” wording that still appears on its product pages. A government record that confirms the Detroit assembly and the foreign content in the same breath is about as good as corroboration gets for this tier.
The limit is everything that is not a watch. Shinola sells bags, wallets, belts, jewelry, clocks, journals and homeware, and almost none of those pages says where the thing is made. The about page says “many” of the straps are sewn in Detroit, and the FAQ says plainly that some components are no longer made in America at the quality and scale the company needs.
One of them does say, and it is what puts the brand’s mark at the floor. The Woven Alpaca Wool Blanket, $425 and in stock, reads “Made in Peru” on its own page. Shinola is careful about the distinction, to its credit: the Alpaca Throw Blanket beside it is “knit in Brooklyn” from Peruvian fibre, which is an imported material in an American good and an entirely different thing. The woven one is made in Peru, sold under the Shinola name, and it is the only product in a 807-item catalogue that names a foreign country as its place of manufacture.
So the brand badge is the floor and the Detroit-assembled watches carry their own mark below. For everything else, a leather-goods shopper should treat the Detroit factory as a claim about straps, not about the bag.
The record
Every watch movement is assembled in the Detroit factory from Swiss and imported parts
“Argonite is the first movement we built in Detroit. We assemble every movement in our Detroit factory from Swiss and imported parts. Argonite is the name given to any movement completely assembled and tested in our factory, housed in the historic Argonaut Building. The number that follows is from Ronda, our partner and Swiss movement supplier.”
shinola.comRetrieved
The company runs a watch factory and a leather studio on the fifth floor of the Argonaut Building in Detroit
“Located on the fifth floor of the historic Argonaut Building, our factory includes state-of-the-art watchmaking facilities and a leather studio, where artisans hand assemble timepieces and craft premium leather straps entirely in-house.”
shinola.comRetrieved
The company says some of its parts and components cannot be sourced in the United States
“We are committed to making Shinola goods with as many American-made components as possible. Sometimes it's not possible… Certain parts and components are no longer made in America at the quality and scale that we require.”
shinola.comRetrieved
The Federal Trade Commission found that certain Shinola watches were made entirely from imported materials, and the company agreed to qualify its origin claims
“In this case, the Company sources significant inputs to many of its products overseas. For example, 100% of the cost of materials used to make certain watches is attributable to imported materials. Similarly, more than 70% of the cost of the materials used to make certain belts is attributable to imported materials such as decorative buckles. Additionally, Bedrock sources the steel used to make certain bicycle forks overseas.”
ftc.govRetrieved
One finished Shinola good is made in Peru, and the product page says so
“Made in Peru, it features intarsia striping and the classic Shinola bolt—details that can only be produced by one loom in the entire factory.”
shinola.comRetrieved
Domain record
shinola.com was registered on .It dates the domain, not the business: a maker that moved to a new address reads young here, and an old domain says nothing about who holds it now.
RDAP registry record · checked 19 Sep 2026
Products
Where to buyRunwell Automatic Watch 45mm Black Leather
Assembled in USAThis item carries a different mark from Shinola as a whole, so it has its own record.
The product page says this watch is hand-assembled at the brand's Detroit factory
“Built on Detroit's legacy of craftsmanship, our factory stands as the first U.S. watch factory of its size in over 50 years. Timepieces are hand assembled in-house by skilled artisans, proving that American manufacturing is thriving once again in Detroit.”
shinola.comRetrieved
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