Collection: Shinola

Shinola is an American lifestyle brand founded in 2011 in Detroit by Tom Kartsotis, previously a co-founder of Fossil Group. Built around a mission to revive American watchmaking, Shinola opened its Detroit factory in 2012 — the first U.S. watch factory of its scale in roughly fifty years — where skilled artisans still hand-assemble every timepiece today. Best known for the Runwell, its debut model, Shinola has since expanded into leather goods, jewelry, and eyewear, all rooted in the same commitment to American manufacturing and Detroit craftsmanship. King Jewelers is proud to carry Shinola for customers who want distinctive, American-assembled watches with a genuine hometown story behind them.

Shinola was founded in 2011 by Tom Kartsotis, who previously co-founded Fossil Group, through his investment firm Bedrock. Kartsotis set out to build a high-quality American watch brand at a time when no domestic manufacturer had produced watches at scale since the late 1960s. The Shinola name itself was revived from a defunct early-1900s shoe polish brand, chosen somewhat by accident during a heated naming discussion. In 2012, the company transformed 12,000 square feet of Detroit's historic Argonaut Building into a watch factory — the first of its size built in the U.S. in roughly fifty years — training its Detroit workforce with the help of Swiss watchmaking partners. Shinola's first watch, the Runwell, launched in March 2013 in a limited run of 2,500 pieces that sold out within a week, notably shipping just as the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy. As the brand grew, its "Built in Detroit" and "Where American is Made" marketing drew scrutiny, and in 2016 the Federal Trade Commission found that some Shinola watches used entirely foreign-sourced components; the company subsequently adjusted its marketing to describe its watches as built in Detroit using both American and imported parts, including Swiss-made components. Since then, Shinola has expanded well beyond watches into leather goods, jewelry, eyewear, and even a namesake hotel in downtown Detroit, while continuing to hand-assemble its timepieces in its original Detroit factory — worn publicly over the years by figures including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.