The Humble Beginnings of a Cultural Icon
In 1981, Kikuo Ibe was an engineer at Casio Computer Co., Ltd. One fateful day, he accidentally dropped the heirloom pocket watch given by his father.
G-SHOCK Creator Kikuo Ibe
The watch shattered and stopped working, spawning Ibe’s search for a solution to fragile watches and his quest to make a “shockproof watch”. At Casio, Ibe formed “Team Tough”, whose sole purpose was to conceive of a watch with “triple ten” resistance criteria: a 10-year battery life, 10 bar water resistance and the durability to survive a fall of ten meters.
After nearly 200 failed prototypes, Ibe was inspired by children playing ball games whilst visiting a playground: the surface of rubber balls will absorb the energy of bounces and prevent damage to its centre. Thus he created a system where the timing and display module of the watch is suspended within the stainless steel case, where including the watch bumper, crystal, and case back there will be over 10 layers of protection in totality.
Kanye with a G-SHOCK DW-6900
Nigo with his personal G-SHOCK DW-5600 and DW6900 collabs
The watch was named “G-SHOCK”, an abbreviation of “Gravity Shock” to advertise its drop-proof feature. The first G-SHOCK, model DW-5000C was released in 1983 to low domestic and international sales due to people’s preference for dress watches. However, after a US Television Commercial where the G-SHOCK was used as a hockey puck, and various magazine advertisements it gained immense popularity. Many models followed suit including the iconic DW-6900 and the G-SHOCK Frogman, along with them came various innovative features such as multi-band 6 atomic timekeeping, solar charging and tide graphs.
The G-SHOCK Moon Ad
The treat it like you hate it Ad
Due to its unprecedented functionality, the G-SHOCK watch became a reliable tool and friend for professionals such as divers, car mechanics and astronauts.
The G-Shock now with 200m water resistance as part of the Casio lineup
The variety of G-Shock models
The G-SHOCK also became a must-have within various subcultures, sported by graffiti artists, skaters, DJs and MCs. Today it frequently appears in popular media on the wrists of celebrity musicians, actors, or even on your favorite anime character.
Words by David Wu writer from Melbourne, Australia
