Shinola
United States · Founded 2011
American lifestyle brand relaunched in Detroit. The 'Shinola' name/trademark originated in 1877 as a shoe-polish brand, which ceased production around 1960 and lay dormant for decades -- source of the old idiom 'you don't know shit from Shinola.' In 2011 Tom Kartsotis, a co-founder of Fossil Group who had already left that company, acquired rights to the dormant name via his holding company Bedrock Manufacturing (founded 2005; also owns Filson). Shinola LLC/Shinola Detroit was founded 2011-2012 with an explicit mission of reviving domestic manufacturing jobs, choosing Detroit for its industrial heritage; it opened a watch-assembly factory/showroom in 2012 inside the Argonaut Building on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard, affiliated with the College for Creative Studies, described at the time as the first watch factory of its size built in the US in decades. Business model: watch movements (Ronda-based 'Argonite' calibers) and most components -- dials, hands, cases, crystals, buckles -- are manufactured abroad (Ronda parts via Switzerland/Thailand; other components largely Guangdong, China), then shipped to Detroit for final hand-assembly and QC. This drew FTC scrutiny: in June 2016 the FTC settled with Shinola (as 'Detroit Watch Company LLC') over its 'Where American Is Made' slogan, finding that for certain watch models 100% of material cost was attributable to imported components, so the unqualified domestic-origin claim failed the FTC's 'all or virtually all' standard. The settlement barred unqualified US-origin claims on products with meaningful imported content; Shinola shifted marketing to 'built in Detroit'/assembled domesti [Corrected: the FTC action's respondent entity was Bedrock Manufacturing Company, LLC (doing business as Shinola/Detroit, LLC), not 'Detroit Watch Company LLC'. Confirmed watch component sourcing (per the FTC closing letter and a parallel class action) was Switzerland and Thailand; no source confirms China specifically for watch components.]