VPI Industries reveals Shinola x VPI table.

The colloquialism "You don’t know s--- from Shinola, that’s why your shoes don’t shine" was a reference to Shinola shoe polish, a standard in American shoes from around 1900 until they went out of business in about 1960. Apparently when the head of an investment firm said he wanted to make high quality watches in the US, someone used the old colloquialism to describe his understanding of what it would take to do that. The name stuck and they became the Shinola company, geared to making quality American products including watches and bicycles. The current Shinola company is a new company, having been founded in 2011. There is no actual relationship to the old company, the new group just liked the name and obtained rights to use it. They manufacture in the US, although they use watch parts from Switzerland.

pryso - The company did not use that phrase, but people did. The original form, as I understand it, often included the reference to shoes, put got shortened over time. It was definitely a put-down, not a marketing campaign.