The story · Since 2012
The Shinola story
- 2012 Swiss watchmaker Ronda, which created Shinola in a collaboration with parent company Bedrock Manufacturing, sent a team to Detroit to train Shinola's first hires, including former auto shop workers, to build its quartz movements in a factory on the fifth floor of the old General Motors Argonaut building.
- 2013 Shinola launched at Baselworld in 2013. By January 2014 its Detroit line had produced about 50,000 watches priced from $648 to $1,160, built from Ronda quartz movements with Chinese cases, dials, hands and crystals and US-made leather straps; the target for 2014 was 150,000 units. Its first watch designed for women, the Birdy, was about to ship when Detroit filed for bankruptcy on 18 July 2013, and Shinola announced it with a message in the New York Times.
- 2016 After a Federal Trade Commission review, which found that imported materials accounted for 100% of material cost in certain watches, Shinola dropped its "Where American is Made" slogan in June 2016 and added "Swiss and Imported Parts" below "Built in Detroit" on its casebacks; the FTC closed the matter without enforcement action on 16 June 2016.
- 2022 Ten years after the factory opened, Shinola said its Detroit timekeepers had assembled over one million watches; several of the first watch assemblers had moved into leadership roles, including a movement and clock department supervisor trained under Ronda AG and a production manager, while others moved into repairs.
- 2023 Shinola became Official Timekeeper of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix as the race returned to downtown streets for the first time since 1991, signing a three-year deal; the IndyCar winner received a limited Canfield Speedway Lap 05 chronograph and the next two finishers and the pole sitter a Runwell.
- 2026 In July 2026 Shinola released its first-ever brand campaign, "The Restaurant", built around the Runwell; Succession actor Nicholas Braun starred in the film and made his directing debut on it, co-directing with Quba Tuakli of the agency GentleForces.
Firsts and innovations
2012. Shinola describes its Detroit plant as the first watch factory opened in the United States in nearly fifty years.