Casio G-SHOCK Celebrates 30th Anniversary in Singapore with Pop-up Store and Limited Edition Maison Martin Margiela Collaboration

Last Friday (14 June), the 30th anniversary celebration of Casio G-SHOCK kickstarted with the launch of Singapore’s first ever Casio pop-up store at ION Orchard Atrium Level 1. From now till 23 June 2013, the pop-up store will be displaying the latest and most exclusive G-SHOCK and Baby-G timepieces, along with a special limited edition G-SHOCK designed in collaboration with Maison Martin Margeila.

Thirty years ago in 1983, the founding father of G-SHOCK, Kikuo Ibe, created the original G-SHOCK after two years of trials and over 200 experimental prototypes. G-SHOCK eventually emerged as a global phenomenon, known for its innovative shock-absorbing and high water resistant material.

When I was in my secondary school, owning a G-SHOCK watch makes you very cool in school.  I remember saving hard to buy one together with two of my close pals. We even went down to the G-SHOCK warehouse to beg the retailer to sell it to us at a cheaper price (we succeeded). To date, I have more than seven G-SHOCK watches. All of them are still functioning, including the ones I bought more than two decades ago!

 The interior of the pop-up store is designed to be a walk-through museum, featuring 30 new and creative G-SHOCK designs conceptualised by G-SHOCK fans in Singapore as part of the “Design A Casio G-SHOCK” competition held in March this year.

There will be a “Casio Shock the World Party” to follow, whereby the top designs among the 30 entries will be announced. The winning design will win a pair of tickets to Japan, among other attractive prizes. Do go check out their designs, I was very impressed by some of them.

The “Casio Shock the World Party” is actually part of the “Casio Shock the World Tour”, which has visited 35 cities around the world since 2009, including Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Mexico City, New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Bangkok and Tokyo. It is slated to make a stop in Singapore on 19 July 2013. Keep a look out for it.

The Casio pop-up store will be open from 10.00am to 10.00pm daily till 23 June 2013. Selected limited-edition watches displayed at the store will be available for purchase at the nearest G-Factory outlet at Basement 3, unit B3-65B in Ion Orchard.

Particularly note-worthy is the exclusive G-SHOCK by Maison Martin Margiela (GA-300MMM-8). There will only be 48 pieces of this exclusive model available for sale in Singapore:

A well-acclaimed fashion brand founded in 1988, Maison Martin Margiela designed the bespoke timepiece inspired from the G-SHOCK GA-300, an orignal design by Casio. Each piece features Maison Martin Margiela’s signature “0 to 23” logo engraved on the back case of the watch and is tagged with an exclusive serial number.

Priced at S$399 each, the G-SHOCK by Maison Martin Margiela is available since last Friday, exclusively at G-Factory outlets at Plaza Singapura (#03-63), ION Orchard (#B3-47) and Takashimaya (level 1), while stocks last. Pre-orders or reservations are not available and consumers are limited to buy only 1-piece each.