How Detroit design brand Shinola is pioneering a home-grown manufacturing movement.

Given that the majority of us reside in a truly global economy, being interested in where your suit was made, or where the leather on your shoes was tanned, or where the fibres of your cashmere sweater were harvested might not seem that important. Yet we attach great significance to the “Built in” labels or insignias that come with our most-cherished belongings. When it comes to fine craftsmanship, we yearn for the local, some small pocket of expertise that isn’t able to be fully replicated anywhere else. Detroit is one such pocket, a city with a strong “maker” culture, with a history of manufacturing products such as the stove and the automobile. Now, Shinola is perpetuating this tradition by carrying the torch for Built in America and, we might add, doing so impeccably.

Shinola was conceived with the belief that products should be assembled by hand and built to last. As builders of modern watches, bicycles, leather goods and journals, the brand stands for skill at scale, the preservation of craft and the beauty of industry. In 2011, when it made its home in Detroit – a city that’s been reborn more times than the most resilient of deities – it realised this dream.

To create the first handmade watch in Detroit, Shinola had to build the first-ever watch factory in Detroit. The state-of-the-art facility is among the most modern in the world and complies to Swiss quality standards. Everything is done by hand, from the incredibly precise Argonite movements to the final assembly. In November 2014, Shinola announced the opening of a new dial manufacturing operation in Detroit, located in its flagship store, which allows visitors a view into the domain of this marvel of miniature engineering.

This physical ownership of the production process also feeds through to Shinola’s leather goods arm, housed in a 12,000-square-foot factory with a team of 68 professionally trained leather artisans. It is a badge of honour, and well it should be, that Shinola continues to train home-grown talents in handmade disciplines because it is precisely the individual craftsmanship that makes every piece a unique item. As long as there are brands like Shinola to grow and support Detroit’s can-do creative heritage, then America’s once-great manufacturing legacy can become great once more.