New Wave's Creative Community Builds Differently With G-Shock Editorial

A good product brief should leave room for interpretation. That is the thinking behind New Wave’s community projects, which give young creatives the opportunity to take a product and see it through their own lens. For our latest project, we partnered with G-SHOCK and handed the GM-2110D-3A1M to a new generation of creatives, asking them to explore what it means to be built different. The brief was only the starting point. From developing the idea to producing the final images, the project gave everyone involved a chance to experience what happens when a creative vision has to become something real.

Photography, Editing & Grading: Eniola Alalade

Co-Creative Direction: Eniola Alalade & Jems

Styling: Jems

Model: Chelsea Denton via Babu Studios

Lighting Assistant & BTS: Dylan Douglas

Videographer: hklivingg

Video Grading and Editing: @j3m_j3m_

Runner: Amani Dime

Artwork courtesy of @qahrenta

First came the watch. The GM-2110D-3A1M takes the familiar octagonal shape of the 2100 series and gives it a more polished, metallic character, finished with a distinctive green tone that brings another dimension to its industrial design. It is recognisably G-SHOCK without being restricted to one environment, moving naturally between disciplines and everyday life. There is a reason the silhouette has become so recognisable: it carries the visual language of a tool built for function while still having enough presence to become part of someone’s personal style.

The story behind G-SHOCK is just as important as the object itself. In 1983, CASIO engineer Kikuo Ibe set out with an unusually direct ambition: to create a watch that would never break. The answer came through a construction engineered to withstand centrifugal and impact forces as well as high water pressure. More than 40 years later and with over 130 million units sold worldwide, that original idea has grown into a philosophy of independence, resilience and refusing to stop at the first obstacle. From fashion and sport to music, art and the military, G-SHOCK has found its way onto the wrists of people who share that same instinct to push further.

That spirit also made Babu Studios a natural part of the project. Founded by model and content creator Angel Williams-Gray, the grassroots platform is focused on helping aspiring models become industry ready, offering access to castings, paid opportunities and practical workshops designed around the realities of working in fashion. Babu’s development sessions introduce models to industry standards, while its professional headshot days give them the imagery needed to build stronger portfolios. It is a platform designed around progression, giving emerging talent the tools and experience to move with more confidence.

This time, Babu Studios selected a model from its community to step onto the set. The opportunity was about more than adding another shoot to a portfolio. It meant entering a new creative environment, working alongside a team and experiencing the pace and collaboration of a professional production. For an emerging model, those details matter. Knowing how a set works, how a photographer communicates, how a concept changes in the room and how to carry yourself through the process are all things that become clearer through experience.

Then came the idea. Creative duo Jemima Onuwe and Eniola Alalade were selected for their winning concept, “One painter. One story. Two worlds.” Their brief follows a female painter through two distinctly different spaces, beginning in the bedroom where the work is made and ending in the gallery where it is presented. The contrast between the two became the visual language of the shoot: one space cramped, intimate and personal; the other open, elevated and public.

For Eniola, the shoot became as much about navigating the realities of production as it was about the final images. “Shooting this with New Wave was genuinely one of my favourite days this year, running between the tube, the studio and the gallery trying to figure out how to make one frame do both jobs, tell a story and still let the watch shine,” she says. “Learned a lot about pacing a shoot across locations without losing the thread. Big love to the whole crew, it honestly felt like one of those days where everyone was just locked in.”

Jemima saw the movement between locations as another layer of the story. “Something magical happens when there’s a shoot day and you’re working with a good team and have a solid story to tell. This was one of those days,” she says. “Running from the tube to the gallery to the bedroom taking in the different parts of London; from the more polished sophistication parts to the more ethnic urban parts. Our journey this day reflects the story we are conveying and I love how real it is. Thank you New Wave for this opportunity and trusting us to execute this concept.” The movement through London became an extension of the concept itself, allowing the visual narrative to shift naturally between environments while keeping the character and watch connected throughout.

In the first world, the details tell the story. References cover the floor, the room carries the evidence of late nights and a single lamp cuts through the darkness as she works. The GM-2110D-3A1M stays on her wrist throughout, becoming part of the process as she paints, experiments and figures things out. There is something deliberately unpolished about this environment. Before the work reaches a gallery, it exists here, surrounded by uncertainty, discarded ideas and the hours that nobody sees.

The gallery changes the scale but not the story. The finished painting now occupies the wall, the room has space to breathe and the work that once existed privately can finally be seen publicly. But the watch is still there. She has carried everything from that bedroom into this new environment: the references, the long nights, the decisions and the work itself. That continuity became the strongest connection to G-SHOCK’s philosophy, showing that being built different is not about arriving fully formed, but having the durability to keep working until the idea becomes something you can stand behind.

Most importantly, the project gave the people behind it a chance to understand what happens between an idea and the finished image. Jemima and Eniola had to translate a written concept into a visual world, the selected model had to inhabit that world, and the wider team had to bring the moving parts together on set. That process is where the value of projects like this sits. Young creatives are not simply being given a platform to show their work; they are being given the opportunity to understand how an idea develops, changes and eventually lands in front of an audience.

That is what New Wave wants these community projects to do. Give people the brief, give them the space and see what they make with it. Our collaboration with G-SHOCK and Babu Studios brought together emerging talent across modelling, creative direction and image making, while creating a genuine production experience from beginning to end. The finished shoot is the visible part, but the bigger outcome is everything that happened before it: the conversations, decisions, mistakes, adjustments and moments of discovery that turned an idea into something tangible. Built different is a G-SHOCK philosophy, but for the creatives involved, it became something to demonstrate.