We’ll be the first to admit that we’re not that clued up on timepieces here at Proper – no one wears a watch, all the clocks are wrong and everyone is late. We do have an appreciation for nice things though, and that encompasses nice watches, so that’s why we feel qualified to make this post.
G-SHOCK has released a UK only collaboration with California-based surf lifestyle and ocean preservation brand, Western Hydrodynamic Research.
For those unaware/uncultured/uneducated here’s a quick background on Western Hydrodynamic Research…
Western Hydrodynamic Research was founded in 2013 by Pat Towersey, a man fanatical about both hardwearing product design and the ocean. Pat developed Western Hydrodynamic Research with the vision of it becoming a brand that would supply high-quality beach utility products. Pat always found that G-SHOCK’s hardwearing and utilitarian design made them the perfect timepiece to wear when surfing and cleaning up the beach, so you can imagine he was pretty pleased when G-SHOCK agreed to collaborate with him.
The collaboration is predictably centred around a watch, a G-SHOCK model called the GLX-5600WHR-2ER, but don’t worry it’s not as complicated as the name may suggest. The watch is pretty much a relatively standard-looking digital one, coming in a deep ocean blue colour and featuring 20-bar water resistance as well as tide and moon graphs, things that are apparently critical tools for surf and marine sports.
Western Hydrodynamic Research has also placed sustainability at the forefront of the collaboration, making the watch’s bezel and band from bio-based resins that have been produced using renewable organic plant resources.
Now we’ve covered the watch, we can get back to something we’re a bit more knowledgeable and comfortable talking about – clothes. Phew.
Accompanying the watch is a first for G-SHOCK – a collection of extremely limited edition clobber, including a T-shirt, hoodie and cap. The T-shirt and Hoodie share the same design – a front graphic of a series of differing beach footprints, combined with a back graphic of both the brands’ names. The cap shares the footprint motif, which is placed over the top of a Western Hydrodynamic Research logo.
Interestingly all the garments utilize Western Hydrodynamic Research’s signature bungee or paracord as a means to adjust them – so the T-shirt and Hoodie have it running through the hem, and the cap uses it as a way to adjust it at the back.
Although this collaboration is limited edition, it doesn’t solely succeed just because of exclusivity. The pieces are genuinely very considered, functional and just generally pretty cool. It’s also always nice to see brands giving back to mother nature, and Western Hydrodynamic Research couldn’t be much better in that respect.
To purchase any of the items from this release, do so here.