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Detroit start-up has “saved” century-old leather business

04/05/2017
Detroit start-up has “saved” century-old leather business
A supplier of leather watch straps founded in Massachusetts more than a century ago has said becoming a supplier to Detroit-based leathergoods start-up Shinola has saved its business.

Shinola featured prominently in a recent Financial Times article about US-made products. The company has said it decided to open its factory making watches, briefcases, small leathergoods and other products in Detroit in 2013 specifically to bring manufacturing jobs back to the city. “We build our goods to last, but of all the things we make, American jobs might just be the thing we’re most proud of,” Shinola says.

Hardware components might come from the US or from overseas, but all Shinola leather products are designed, cut and sewn in the US using US-tanned leather. The tanneries the company is currently working with include Seidel Tanning Corporation, Horween Leather, Thiele Tanning Company, S.B. Foot, Wickett & Craig and Pan American Leathers.

Another supplier is finished watch-strap manufacturer Roma Industries, which has a showroom and executive offices in New York, but which runs its manufacturing operation in Florida. The company has been running since its foundation in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1903, but its president, Paul Horowitz, told the Financial Times: “Without a doubt, the Shinola partnership has saved our business.”



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