Shinola has a new creative director.
Effective Monday, former Coach executive Jonathan Bailey has joined the company, reporting to Kevin Wertz, chief marketing officer of Bedrock Manufacturing, Shinola’s parent.
At Shinola, Bailey will oversee creative direction across all brand touch points, including paid, owned and social.
Although Ruthie Underwood had previously served as chief creative officer, “This is a new role for the brand,” Shinola said. “It will shape how our voice, identity, and creative strategy evolve — while honoring the creative foundation built over the past 12 years. This position will specifically oversee the brand’s creative direction across marketing, campaigns and storytelling.”
Bailey joins Shinola after spending seven years at Coach, where he served as divisional vice president of global creative studio and was instrumental in campaigns like the “Courage to Be Real” short film with Lil Nas X, the brand’s “Expressive Luxury” strategy and Coach TV. Before that, he led global digital content at Tiffany & Co., where he oversaw the launch of Tiffany’s Snapchat. Earlier in his career he held roles at Show Media, Big Smoke Magazine and co-founded the 3’Hi music agency.
Shinola was founded in 2011 as a watch brand with a mission to return manufacturing to the challenged city of Detroit. It built the first watch factory in that city in over 50 years. Since then, Shinola has expanded into the creation of a wide variety of leather goods, jewelry, pet products, knives and other items, and also entered the hospitality space, opening an eponymous hotel in 2019.
Shinola continues to be an ardent promoter of Made in America. It assembles its watches in Detroit from Swiss-made components. But on Sunday it took out a full-page ad in The New York Times inviting Swiss brands to join it in a partnership and collaborate to bring the complete manufacturing of watches, including components, back to the U.S.
Shinola’s call was sparked by the Trump administration’s slapping of 39 percent duties on all imports from Switzerland, which has shocked the European nation and sent it scurrying to negotiate a better deal. The U.S. is the largest market for the Swiss watch industry.