Shinola watches are literally built different. Detroit can lay claim to more than its share of important exports, from Motown and the Big Three to Tim Robinson and Big Sean. No list of Detroit’s greatest hits, however, would be complete without a mention of Shinola, the modern accessories brand that’s been crafting covetable timepieces (along with leather goods and, for a time, bikes) in Detroit for nearly 15 years.
Named for a long-defunct brand of shoe polish, Shinola faced some skepticism when it launched in 2011 against the backdrop of the city’s headline-making decline. Since then, however, Shinola has defied expectations and grown into one of the country’s most recognized watch brands, blending a distinctive vintage-inspired aesthetic with Swiss-made components and a healthy dollop of civic pride. Nowadays, anyone in the market for a Shinola timepiece has more than 100 models to pick from, all of which are assembled at the brand’s flagship HQ in the historic Argonaut Building. From vintage skin divers to dials made of fossilized coral, these are the best of ‘em.
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The Best Men’s Shinola Watches, According to GQ
In This Guide
Best Shinola Dive Watch: Shinola Duck Watch
Shinola’s latest drop (not counting this week’s instantly sold-out homage to famed Detroit mixtape artiste J Dilla) is inspired by the golden era of skin diving in the 1960s and 1970s. With a decidedly mid-century look accented by a palette of pinks, yellows and blues, the Duck makes an ideal complement to camp shirts, huaraches, and anything else you might be rocking at the beach (or the pool, or the cookout) this summer.
Best Shinola Chronograph Watch: Shinola Mackinac Automatic Watch
This limited-edition ticker isn’t named for the beautiful and historic island in Lake Michigan, but for a historic race to the island and back held each summer by the Chicago Yacht Club. Befitting its namesake (and in addition to its distinctive square case and Bermuda blue dial), the Shinola Mackinac is distinguished by a yacht-timer function, which can be used to count down to the start of a race or regatta. Fortunately, you don’t need to know the difference between a spinnaker and a genoa to appreciate the nautical vibes on display here, but just in case you find yourself in the Chicago Yacht Club this summer, it’s pronounced mackinAW.
Best Shinola Daily Driver Watch: Circadian Monster Automatic Watch
For all of their many appealing attributes, Shinola’s watches have historically been on the chonkier end of the spectrum, with cases measuring up to a certifiably beefy 48mm. With this year’s introduction of the Circadian Monster Automatic, however, the brand finally has something for those with a taste for more classic proportions. At 36mm across, the Circadian’s stainless steel case is near-universally flattering, especially when paired with a eucalyptus green dial. If you’re on the hunt for a watch that’ll look right with pretty much anything in your wardrobe, this’ll do the trick.
Best Vintage-Like Shinola Watch: Shinola Mechanic Watch
Shinola’s aesthetic has always been heavily influenced by a nostalgia for mid-century Americana, but few of the brand’s creations hit the mark with as much finesse as the Mechanic. A cushion-shaped case, “box” style crystal, and big sans-serif numerals recall the timepiece designs of the 1930s and 1940s, as does an old-school Swiss windup movement.
Best Shinola Watch With the Coolest Dial: Shinola Runwell Watch
Stone dials are everywhere these days, but Shinola was well ahead of the curve when it launched this variant of the Runwell in 2017. Anyone who’s spent time on a Lake Michigan beach is probably familiar with the unique look of Petoskey stones, which get their unusual six-sided pattern from the fossilized remains of coral that thrived in the area some 400 million years ago and remain a common find on shores in the state’s lower peninsula. That makes this Runwell not just one of the most unique stone dial watches out there, but perhaps the most historic Michigan creation since the Coney Dog.
4 More Shinola Watches We Love
How We Test and Review Products
Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.
Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.
How We Make These Picks
We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.
To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.
We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.
Across the majority of our buying guides, our team boasts firsthand experience with the bulk of our selects, but a handful are totally new to us. So after several months of intense debate, we tally the votes, collate the anecdotal evidence, and emerge with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best of the category right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable beaters to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs.
Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there’s bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ’s testing process here.)