What has kept the G-Shock from becoming the horological equivalent of other, flash-in-the-pan 1990s trends like Hanson and chain wallets is that it is always reinventing itself. Since then, these Casios have been made even cooler through limited edition collaborations with artists and streetwear designers such as Takashi Murakami, Maison Martin Margeila, Stussy, Bathing Ape and more. Japanese kids could not get enough of American youth culture at the time and were actually importing G-Shocks from the west.īasically, the G-Shock made digital watches a desirable signifier (although they also started offering analog versions in 1989). Strangely enough, it was the G-Shock’s success in the US that made it a hit in its homeland of Japan. In 1990, the DW-5900C, with its innovative Tri-graph liquid crystal display, was a huge hit in youth culture. More importantly, the timepiece took off with skateboarders on the west coast of the United States and Hip Hop heads on the east coast. In 1984, after an ad showing a hockey player using the next iteration of the G-Shock (the DW-5200C) to take a slap shot aired in North America, the watch quickly became popular amongst outdoor enthusiasts, firefighters and police officers.
The square, chunky case was practical, but not pretty.
Believe it or not, the G-Shock was a slow starter.