After months of waiting for our leather goods to be perfected by our sample maker in St. Louis, we finally got a first look! We’re super excited about the way things are coming together, and we can’t wait to show you the finished products this fall! […]
Watches: Behind The Straps
Our watch straps are a perfect example of finding common ground between a truly hand-crafted product, and modern techniques in manufacturing. As with all Shinola wares, both components are equally as important, but finding that balance is never easy. Creating something by hand adds certain characteristics that are extremely difficult to replicate with machinery, which […]
Bikes: Our Prototypes Have Arrived
The heart of the bicycle is the frame, and, arguably, the material that instills the most passion, from the builder to the rider, is steel. One of the most passionate defenders of steel, is the master Italian artist/frame builder, Dario Pegoretti, quoted below on how steel is “alive.” “I’m talking about the smell of […]
It’s A Movement, Movement
When a Shinola Argonite 1069 movement is complete, with 46 individual pieces working together to tell time, it’s truly a beautiful piece of equipment. The movement acts similarly to the engine of a car—without each component intact and performing its job, it doesn’t run. Each movement is hand-assembled in a dust-free cleanroom-like environment, and tested throughout […]
Our Bicycles Are In Progress
At the height of the bicycle boom in the late 19th century, when Ignaz Schwinn began production at his factory on the corner of Lake and Peoria streets in Chicago, there were over 300 bicycle factories and assembly shops in the USA. Not only did domestic manufacturers produce their own frames and forks, they also […]
Sh*t From Shinola
The original Shinola brand was founded in 1907, and, although it was growing in popularity, Shinola’s rise in demand really hit its peak during WWI due to the sheer number of army boots that needed shining. Of course, Shinola wasn’t the only shoe shine out there, but the brand name might be one of the […]
CCS: A History of Innovation
The Alfred Taubman Center For Design Education, built by Alfred A Kahn in 1928, once was the home for the innovative minds of General Motors and Electrics. Some of the great inventions from automatic transmission to the first heart-lung machine came from this building. Currently, the Taubman Center houses both the College for Creative Studies, […]