The company was founded in 2012 by former Fossil founder and CEO Tom Kartsotis. He sold his business and acquired the brand of the long-defunct shoe brand Shinola. The company immediately declared the revival of Detroit industry, ambitiously taking on the production of a rather strange range of products: bicycles, leather goods and watches. The company quickly attracted the attention of not only the governor of Michigan, but also former President Bill Clinton, who was so inspired by the idea of a new rise in American industry that he bought himself a dozen different Shinola watches.
The brand quickly became international, moving beyond the United States, where it managed to open a dozen and a half stores. In its watches, the company uses Swiss Ronda and Japanese Miyota movements, as well as Taiwanese BAT Ltd. dials. The traditional stamp of origin is also interestingly played up: these watches say “Built in Detroit”.
In 1992, American watchmaker Roland Murphy decided to found a watch brand. He had been interested in this topic since college, after which he went to study watchmaking in Switzerland, after which he worked for Hamilton. From there, he left his position as a technical manager to start his own business. Among his creations, there are many models that refer to the history of the watch industry, and in production, modern technical means coexist with old manual machines.
The small manufactory is located in Pennsylvania and already has three mechanisms of its own design. Among other things, it practices guilloche dials, which is rare for factories outside of Germany and Switzerland. This technique is considered traditional in the American watch industry, so the company protects and develops it.
