American Made Accessories

1. 🇺🇸 Randolph Engineering

Manufactured: Randolph, Massachusetts

Two Polish immigrant tool-and-die makers, Jan Waszkiewicz and Stanley Zaleski, started Randolph Engineering in 1972 building machinery for other eyewear companies before turning to their own frames. Today the same Massachusetts factory hand-builds every pair through a 200-plus step process, and Randolph holds the current Department of Defense contract to supply aviator sunglasses to Navy and Army pilots, a contract that's been active since the late 1970s.

Best for: buyers who want the actual current military-issue aviator, not a lookalike

What to buy: Randolph Aviator - around $255

2. 🇺🇸 American Optical

Manufactured: Vernon Hills, Illinois

American Optical dates back to 1833, making it the oldest eyewear company in the country, and its Original Pilot model was the first aviator style issued to US pilots in 1958 - the same pair Neil Armstrong wore on the moon, now sitting in the Smithsonian. Manufacturing has moved a couple of times since; the current owner, Europa Eyewear, consolidated production into a Vernon Hills, Illinois factory in 2019, where frames are still hand-built on site.

Best for: the same aviator heritage as Randolph, at a somewhat lower price

What to buy: American Optical Original Pilot - around $295

3. 🇺🇸 Gatorz

Manufactured: California (some sourcing also points to Arizona - see caveat)

Gatorz machines its sunglass frames from 7075 aircraft-grade aluminum, the same alloy used in airplane construction, and started out designing for Navy SEALs and extreme sports athletes in 1989. Every rivet and hinge is hand-assembled, and because the frames are aluminum rather than plastic, they bend under pressure and spring back to shape instead of snapping.

Caveat: sources disagree on Gatorz's exact current manufacturing city - some point to California, others to Arizona. Both are domestic, so this doesn't affect the USA-made claim, just the specific address.

Best for: tactical, military, and outdoor use where frames need to survive real abuse

What to buy: Gatorz Magnum - around $225

4. 🇺🇸 Shwood

Manufactured: Portland, Oregon

Shwood builds its sunglass frames out of real wood - mostly Pacific Northwest hardwoods - at its Portland shop, doing every step from veneering to shaping and finishing in-house. Since no two pieces of wood grain look alike, no two pairs of Shwoods look quite the same either, which is a genuinely different pitch than the standard acetate or metal frame.

Best for: casual, lifestyle-focused buyers who want something visually distinct from typical sunglasses

What to buy: Shwood Canby - around $230

5. 🇺🇸 Frank Clegg

Manufactured: Fall River, Massachusetts

Frank Clegg got his start in 1970 after receiving a set of leather tools as a Christmas gift, and the company he built now runs out of a restored mill on the South Coast of Massachusetts, with his sons Andrew and Ian carrying the business into its third generation. Every bag is still cut, stitched, and finished by hand in that one workshop - there's no overseas contract manufacturing anywhere in the supply chain.

Best for: totes, briefcases, and bags built to be handed down rather than replaced

What to buy: Frank Clegg totes and briefcases run roughly $400-$1,200 depending on size and leather

6. 🇺🇸 Lotuff Leather

Manufactured: Providence, Rhode Island

Lotuff Leather traces back to the same family business that became Frank Clegg - the two split into separate companies, and Lotuff built its own studio in Providence, Rhode Island in 2013. Roughly 70% of production happens at that Providence studio, with the remainder finished by veteran leatherworkers at a partner shop in Connecticut. The look is deliberately spare - no branding on the outside, just clean lines and vegetable-tanned leather that develops a deep patina with age.

Best for: buyers who want the most minimalist, unbranded option in American luxury leather goods

What to buy: Lotuff totes and bags run roughly $600-$1,500 depending on style

7. 🇺🇸 Shinola

Manufactured: Detroit, Michigan (watch straps and small leather goods confirmed; full handbag line less certain)

Shinola opened a leather workshop in Detroit in 2014, using leather from Horween, one of the oldest working tanneries in the country, based in Chicago. The Detroit facility started by producing watch straps in-house and has since expanded into small leather goods.

Caveat: Shinola's own materials describe the watch strap and small leather goods production as happening at the Detroit factory. Whether the full handbag line - totes, crossbodies, satchels - is currently produced at that same facility or elsewhere is less clearly documented than the strap production, so treat the handbag-specific claim with a bit more caution than the straps.

Best for: buyers who want broad retail availability - Shinola sells through Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and its own stores

What to buy: Shinola handbags run roughly $500-$1,000

8. 🇺🇸 ROAM

Manufactured: Vidalia, Georgia

ROAM designs its hard-shell suitcases in New York and hand-assembles every case at a workshop in Vidalia, Georgia, in a category where genuinely domestic manufacturing is close to nonexistent - most hard-side luggage, including brands that market an American story, is built overseas. ROAM lets buyers customize shell color, zipper trim, wheels, and a monogram on every order, and each case is built after you order it rather than pulled from mass-produced stock.

Caveat: some shell material and hardware components (including the polycarbonate itself, per ROAM's own product pages) are sourced internationally. Assembly and craftsmanship are domestic; not every raw material is.

Best for: buyers who specifically want a US-assembled hard-shell suitcase, a genuinely rare thing to find

9. 🇺🇸 Shinola (Watches)

Assembled: Detroit, Michigan (movements are Swiss)

Shinola partnered with Ronda AG, a Swiss movement manufacturer, to supply components and train a Detroit workforce to assemble watches by hand - cases, crystals, and movement parts arrive from Switzerland and elsewhere, and are put together, tested, and fitted with straps at Shinola's Detroit factory. Their one mechanical model uses a movement built entirely in Switzerland and shipped over for case assembly only.

Caveat: this is genuine hand-assembly in Detroit, not just a label. But it isn't a domestically-built movement the way RGM's watches are - several watch-industry reviewers have pushed back specifically on Shinola's marketing for implying more domestic content than the assembly-only reality supports.

Best for: buyers who want a Detroit-assembled watch and are comfortable with that meaning assembly, not full manufacture

Shinola's quartz watches typically run $475-$900; limited mechanical editions have run over $2,000

What to buy: Shinola Canfield 43mm - around $650

10. 🇺🇸 RGM Watch Company

Manufactured: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Roland Murphy trained as a watchmaker in Switzerland and worked at Hamilton before starting RGM in 1992, in the same Pennsylvania county with a long watchmaking history. RGM is the first American company to design and build its own in-house mechanical movements since Hamilton itself stopped US production in 1969 - a genuinely rare claim in an industry where "American watch brand" almost always means a Swiss or Japanese movement inside a case assembled elsewhere.

Caveat: RGM still sources some components from Switzerland for certain models, so treat this as the most domestically-built option available rather than a 100% all-American claim - by most industry accounts, no watch brand anywhere currently meets that bar.

Best for: buyers who want genuine in-house American movement engineering, not just American assembly

RGM's production watches start around $3,000

11. 🇺🇸 Weiss Watch Company

Manufactured: Los Angeles, California

Founder Cameron Weiss trained at Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin in Switzerland before coming back to build watches in Los Angeles, manufacturing movements, dials, and cases in-house rather than buying finished components. Each watch reportedly takes around 60 hours to build.

Best for: buyers who want a field-watch aesthetic backed by genuine Swiss-trained watchmaking

12. 🇺🇸 Vortic Watch Company

Manufactured: Fort Collins, Colorado

Vortic takes a genuinely different approach: rather than building new movements, the company restores vintage American pocket watch movements from long-defunct brands like Waltham, Elgin, and Illinois, and rehouses them inside modern wristwatch cases. Cases are 3D-printed in New Hampshire, then milled and assembled at Vortic's Fort Collins, Colorado headquarters. Because every donor pocket watch is different, no two finished Vortic watches are identical.

Best for: buyers who want a genuine piece of American watchmaking history running inside a modern case

Vortic's watches typically run $2,500-$12,000 depending on the donor movement and finishing

13. 🇺🇸 Stetson

Manufactured: Garland, Texas (felt line only)

Stetson's felt hats have been made in Garland, Texas by Hatco Inc. for over 150 years, and the company is described as the last US manufacturer still producing fur felt hat bodies start to finish in-house - meaning the felt itself is made there, not just cut and shaped from an imported blank.

Caveat: that domestic claim applies to felt hats specifically. Stetson's straw hat bodies are made overseas and shipped to Texas only for finishing, so check the material before assuming a given Stetson hat is fully domestic.

Best for: classic Western felt hats from the brand most associated with the category

14. 🇺🇸 Bollman Hat Company

Manufactured: Adamstown, Pennsylvania

Bollman is described as the oldest hat factory still operating in the United States, and it's the company actually behind several familiar hat names sold today - it acquired the Bailey Hat Company in 1986, and a large share of Bailey-branded hats are now made at Bollman's Adamstown, Pennsylvania factory rather than Bailey's old California plant, which closed.

Caveat: straw hat bodies in the wider felt-and-straw hat industry are commonly imported and finished domestically rather than made from scratch in the US - if that distinction matters to you, stick to wool felt styles specifically and ask before buying a straw hat.

Best for: wool felt hats from the company with the longest continuous domestic hat-making history in the country