I’ll be honest. Shinola has never really been a brand I spent much time thinking about. There’s always been a bit of a reputation problem in collector circles, and whether that’s fair or not, it’s meant the brand rarely came up in conversations I was interested in having. These new Shinola Runwell Detrola Art Series watches, though, are pretty hard to ignore.
For some quick background, the Detrola line has been around since 2019. The name is a callback to a defunct Detroit brand from the 1930s that made radios and cameras, and that history actually informed some of the original color and material choices across the lineup. It’s a nerdy little detail, but it gives the collection more of a foundation than you might expect from a brand that gets written off as a mall watch.
What’s different about the Art Series is mostly the dial. The standard Shinola Detrola leans on Arabic numerals for character, but these strip that back and go with minimalist, colorful indices on a matte velvet center. The result is something that reads almost retro-futuristic, and it works better than it probably should. Silver hands with small lume slivers, a date at 3 o’clock, and the brand name keeping things clean. At first glance you might not even realize you’re looking at a Detrola.
Everything else stays pretty consistent with the rest of the lineup. Stainless steel case co-molded with polished cream TR90 resin, wire lugs, pumpkin crown, and quick-release straps now done in colors to match the dials. The movement is Shinola’s Swiss-made Argonite 705 quartz caliber, which shows up across both the Detrola and Runwell families. Flat sapphire crystal, 5 ATM water resistance, 41mm case, 20mm lug width if you want to swap straps. The whole punch list is there.
The 41mm case is the one thing I’d want to verify in person. It sounds big for a watch with this kind of delicate, graphic dial language, but the wire lugs and the resin construction probably help it wear smaller than the number implies. I’d go for the blue model, and I suspect it’d look a lot better on the wrist than press photos suggest. These are available now on Shinola’s site for $450.
Shinola has taken plenty of heat from the collector community over the years, and honestly, some of it has been deserved. But I can appreciate what’s going on here. Whether this is enough to actually shift the conversation around the brand is another question.
Co-Founder & Senior Editor
Michael Peñate is an American writer, photographer, and podcaster based in Seattle, Washington. His work typically focuses on the passage of time and the tools we use to connect with that very journey. From aviation to music and travel, his interests span a multitude of disciplines that often intersect with the world of watches – and the obsessive culture behind collecting them.
Hard to take this brand seriously when they position themselves as an underdog supporting American manufacturing but are owned by private equity that spends most of its time dismantling American companies for profit
Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts. It’s a valid thing to consider. I think ownership structure and what’s actually happening on the factory floor don’t always tell the same story, so it’s always worth digging into both. Appreciate you jumping in on the conversation.