Detroit-based Watchmaker Shinola Expands its Luxury Accessory Line
The aesthetic is old-school, strong to the point of muscular, but with luxury undertones. That’s Shinola, the men’s and women’s accessories brand headquartered in Detroit. Its factory, set up there in 2012 by Tom Kartsotis, who previously founded the watch company Fossil Group, now produces some 500 timepieces a day, mostly by hand, and has its own in-house leather workshop fabricating the straps. Shinola has since expanded its offerings to include totes and backpacks, journals, audio speakers, and bicycles.
Retail locations have equally taken off. Rockwell Group designed the first in 2013, in downtown New York. Today, there are 30 stores across the U.S. as well as outposts in Toronto and London. To hear the company’s executives tell it, expanding to the hospitality sector was a natural. “Shinola has always been committed to delivering high-quality, beautifully crafted goods since the get-go, and it’s been no different with this project,” CEO Tom Lewand says of the Shinola Hotel designed by Gachot Studios. “We pieced every aspect of it together with Detroit in mind yet it’s also welcoming to tourists and business travelers.” Given the brand’s proclivity to steady growth, you shouldn’t be too surprised if a Shinola Hotel rolls into your town, too.
