When you walk into the new Shinola shop in downtown Plano, the first thing you notice is the two-story American flag hanging from the ceiling. Pretty appropriate for a company that prides itself on making and selling American-crafted products that are meant to last. Shinola’s bicycles, watches and leather goods are assembled in its Detroit flagship store. The Plano shop is Shinola’s eighth retail location, and the first in Texas.
Everything in Shinola looks expensive, and some of it is, but only because these products are meant to last several generations. You get what you pay for. The store sells high end bicycles, hand poured candles, goose feather pet beds, a variety of books, varsity jackets, and journals. You can find a huge selection of leather goods: wallets, clutches, travel kits, backpacks, phone covers, key rings, totes, you get the idea. They’ve even got leather baseball gloves, basketballs and footballs stamped with the Shinola logo for sale. They also sell shoe polish and leather care products, a nod to the original Shinola shoe polish company founded in 1907.
Next door is Shinola’s sister store, Willy’s. This shop features apparel, accessories and home goods from many different brands, focusing on American-made, handcrafted items. Here are just a handful of the goods we spotted: Levi’s Made & Crafted denim, Le Feu De L’eau and Wary Meyers candles, Kerosene fragrances, Blackbird incense and perfume, The Hill-side printed bandanas, The Carry On Cocktail Kit, Areaware Animal Boxes & Prism Corkscrews, MCMC fragrances & candles, and Clare V. bags.
Both spaces are beautiful, and everything is precisely arranged. Paying homage to the historic downtown Plano building, the overall aesthetic is industrial and vintage. Hardwood floors, exposed fixtures, metal pipes, brick walls, glass and wood displays and a neutral color palette all make you feel as if you could be standing in this very building back in the 1890s, when the space was a furniture and undertaking business owned by E.O. Harrington, whose name is still displayed in mosaic tile at the building’s entrance.
How did Plano manage to land the first Shinola brick-and-mortar in Texas? Shinola’s parent company, Bedrock Manufacturing, is a Plano-based company that actually offices upstairs above the store. And now the shop is just one more reason that downtown Plano is a pretty nice place to spend the afternoon.
Shinola’s Plano location is open Monday through Saturday, 11AM-7PM, and on Sundays from 12-6PM. Other downtown businesses, please take note. People like to shop on Sundays, especially after a few cocktails at brunch from the nearby downtown restaurants.
HOURS:
Monday – Saturday: 11AM-7PM
Sundays: 12-6PM
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