Originally Posted by ShinolaBrian

Hello everyone. My name is Brian. I am the community manager for Shinola, and a lifetime Detroiter. I'd like to thank you, first of all, for the well-reasoned and thoughtful post about our products, and the conversation here. It shows us that people are interested, and we're happy to address any concerns anybody has about our bicycles. We want to be as open and honest as possible about everything we make and where our components come from.


I'd like to clarify our "Made in Detroit" stance; we're doing more than just assembling products here. We have invested significantly in a factory and shop where we are building watches and bicycles from as many American parts as we possibly can. Not only are we investing in manufacturing infrastructure, we're training and re-training skilled American craftspeople. It's hard to tell that story in a few words, but we are proudly Made in Detroit.


If any of you are local, I would love to invite you up to our shop and factory for a tour so you can see first-hand what we've built here.


Also, since this post was made last month, we actually have released and completely sold out of our limited edition watch, "The Runwell". We are ramping up production significantly in the next few months and as of now, are the only company in the United States manufacturing American watches at production scale. I'm not trying to defend our "Watchmaking Capital of America" too hard, here, but those are the facts. We feel that the story is far more involved than merely "quartz watches assembled in America", again because of our significant investment into a manufacturing ecosystem that we hope to foster here in the Motor City.


Shinola is employing Detroiters, putting people with skills back to work in an industry that has a great deal of growth potential. We hope that if people consider our products, they consider the whole story, not just the individual parts.


Thanks again for the kind words of support. We really, really appreciate it!

PS: I'm a long-time forums guy, and I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone better. Also, we definitely fixed our website. The last one wasn't so great, it's true. Thanks!