Page 77 - Bloomberg Businessweek - November 19, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek The Year Ahead 2019 Luxury

Interview Tom Lewand

Mouse’s 90th anniversary with Disney, which
is arguably the most iconic brand in America.

Your stores have a distinct feel. How does “With a
retail play into the broader sales strategy? healthy
degree of
It’s a critical component. We’re a brand that humor and
cries out for people to touch it and feel it and tenacity, you
experience it, from a product standpoint— can get a lot
being able to put that watch on your wrist and of great
feel the quality—but also the experience in things done”
the store. There aren’t any truly omnichannel
retailers out there. A lot of people in retail are
multichannel—they’ve got great e-commerce,
they’ve got great bricks-and-mortar—but
creating that one-to-one relationship with the
customers is really important to us specifically
and I think to the retail industry in general.

When people tell you, “C’mon, brick-and-
mortar, it’s not working,” what do you say?
81
▷ The CEO of Shinola wants to make I couldn’t disagree more. The market will tell
an omnichannel brand that follows you that. As much as online sales are growing,
that only represents a small portion of overall
you to bed at night
retail commerce. Especially with us, we’re an
analog brand in a digital world. I also think the
There seems to be a renaissance of the watch market is telling us that brick-and-mortar’s not
as accessory. Why? dead when digital brands that started out as
e-commerce are now going into brick-and-
With our customers, there is a movement for mortar and are raising capital to expand there.
both analog and digital watches. People are
saying they want a little bit of both. There aren’t It’s The Year Ahead Issue, so in 2019: Any
many accessories that men can choose from, plans to go public?
and watches are one of the most practical. I
don’t think they’ll ever go out of style. No plans for ’19 to do anything in the public
markets. We think this is going to be a great
You guys have had an impressive brand year with some great new offerings. And it will
expansion—leather goods, bags, bicycles, be the first full year of operations for our new
jewelry. Is it still largely about watch sales? hotel here in Detroit.

The growth opportunity for us right now is in Is there a lesson for others in creating manu-
the leather space. We’ve seen phenomenal facturing in a city that most had given up on?
growth this year with wallets, passport [hold-
ers], journal covers, and belts, all the way up We’re not so bold enough to think that we’ve
to our men’s and women’s bags. The market got any of the answers, but we do know that
for leather bags in the U.S. is far larger than with a healthy degree of humor and tenacity,
the market for analog watches. And our col-
you can get a lot of great things done. But you
COURTESY SHINOLA laborations allow us to tell wonderful sto- only do that when you work together. People
really gave us a big bear hug here in Detroit. <BW>
ries about American craftsmanship, quality,
�Carol Massar and Jason Kelly
and brands. We’re launching one for Mickey