SOMA Magazine SOMA Fall Fashion Issue Oct 15 | Page 50

Feature

SHINOLA

Bright, shiny, and made in Detroit
TEXT BY KARENA AKHAVEIN

There’s a once oft-used World War II era expression about not
knowing “sh*t from Shinola,” which referred to a person too
clueless to distinguish between excrement and the brownishblack shoe polish manufactured in Rochester, New York from
1907 to 1960. Now, when Shinola comes up in conversation, it’s
most often in the context of a newer company of the same name.
This new Shinola has capitalized on the slightly faded mystique
of the city of Detroit, once the poster child of urban blight, to
build an American luxury brand that sells fine hand-assembled
watches, bicycles, and hand-crafted leather goods. Oh, and
they sell Shinola shoe polish too, in a retro tin reminiscent of
the original but much more chic, and yes, a tad pricier. It seems
that the same item may be perceived as being worth double if
it is manufactured in the USA rather than China, and triple the
original price if it is made in Detroit. This may be indicative of
a lingering nostalgia for when Detroit was ground zero for the
golden era of US-made automobiles.
Shinola aims to revive the ideals of all-American craft and
quality by banking on the fact that, more and more, Americans
want to feel good about their purchases. It’s a concept that many
first bought into when Toms shoes, with their “buy one, donate
one to a needy person” business model, came onto the scene.
In Shinola’s case, feeling good comes via the idea that buying a
Shinola product supports American craftspeople and contributes to revitalizing a city that had so dramatically fallen victim
to the recession and to racial tension. It also addresses the fact
that many consumers are tired of the endless cycle of purchasing disposable goods. Indeed, what sets Shinola’s goods apart is
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a combination of timeless aesthetic and utmost quality, which
derives from the best materials and careful craftsmanship.
But really, why Detroit? When Tom Kartsotis, formerly
a chairman at Fossil Watches and, like most of the leaders at
Shinola, not a Detroit native, became interested in bringing
back American-made watches, he conducted ample research
and ultimately chose Detroit as home base for the company,
not only because of its history, but also because of its unique
infrastructure. Detroit presents the not negligible incentive of
enormous pre-existing manufacturing spaces, and access to
a large local talent base. The brand is justifiably proud of its
groundbreaking and intensive training program, overseen by
Swiss watch movement manufacturing company Ronda AG,
which teaches laborers who were possibly previously more used
to building something such as a stove or a car, to assemble a
tiny, complicated, luxury consumer product. One similarity with
car manufacturing: components of Shinola watches are made
abroad- in this case, Switzerland- and assembled in Detroit.
Some naysayers have pointed out this issue: that Shinola’s
products are not 100% made in Detroit. But Shinola does not
pretend that this is the case. Most of the brand’s offerings are
a collaborative effort, with design, materials, and labor being
supplied by different highly-specialized teams in different locations, but always with quality in mind, and usually with at least
one element of fabrication based in Detroit. Shinola bicycles,
for example, are individually assembled in Detroit from solid,
classic yet edgy frames produced by a workshop in Wisconsin.
The names of these models, such as Runwell, Detroit Arrow, or