Born of a desire to create a watch that never breaks, the Casio G-Shock is now back and raising a constant feeling of nostalgia of the early ’80s and late ’90s.
In 1981, Casio’s head of watch design Kikuo Ibe wanted to create a watch that never breaks.” In 1983, he created a team called “Team Tough”. Their mission was to create the ultimate watch for military services-members, police, fire and rescue, and for the average worker. There were really only three design criteria — the so-called triple ten — for the watch he had in mind: withstand a 10 meter drop, withstand 10 atmospheres of water pressure, and have a battery life of ten years.
As the number of prototypes passed 200, Team Tough was still far from the design solution they sought. It was then, on a chance visit to a playground, that Ibe got his stroke of inspiration: a bouncing rubber ball. Ibe finally visualized the shock-resisting system that forms the basis of all G-Shock watches. He reasoned that the center of the ball doesn’t suffer the shock that the exterior does. He and his team set out to design a watch to resist shocks in a similar way.
The case of the G-Shock is hollow and the timekeeping module is supported with soft gel cushioning material at only a few key points within. In addition, vital parts of the module itself are protected from impact with additional cushioning material. Protruding points on the case and bezel are made of urethane and protect the buttons and glass from impacts from any direction; even the strap is specially designed to aid in isolating the watch from impacts. All of these features help protect the G-Shock from concussions, high G-forces (such from as auto or air racing), and heavy vibration
G-Shock has continued its unceasing evolution ever since, in pursuit of greater toughness in every respect, from structure and materials to functions.
Today, the development team’s passionate challenge and constant efforts have reached fruition in Triple G Resist, a structure with the strength to withstand 3 types of gravitational acceleration.
In its pursuit of usability under any circumstances, moreover, G-Shock realized installation of Smart Access, a system assuring agile, reliable operability.
Stronger than ever, and targeting even greater strength, G-Shock’sare now available at Gregory’s Fine Jewelry.