MB&F

MB&F — Maximilian Büsser & Friends — is one of the most consequential creative forces in independent watchmaking, founded in Geneva in July 2005 by Maximilian Büsser: born in Milan to a Swiss diplomat father and an Indian mother, educated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne with a Master's degree in microtechnology engineering, and formed professionally at two of the most important addresses in haute horlogerie. Büsser joined Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1991 as a product manager, spending seven years in their senior management during an electrifying period of growth, and was mentored there by Günter Blümlein — the legendary IWC and JLC executive who told him 'creativity is not a democratic process,' a phrase that would define everything MB&F became. At 31, Büsser was appointed managing director of Harry Winston Rare Timepieces, transforming what had been primarily a jewellery brand into a respected haute horlogerie house over seven years. The vehicle for that transformation was the Opus series — Büsser's own creation, launched in 2001, which invited the world's most daring independent watchmakers to design a watch to be housed in a Harry Winston case, carte blanche, one per year. Opus I was by François-Paul Journe; subsequent editions involved Vianney Halter, Felix Baumgartner (Urwerk), and others. The Opus series was the first systematic platform to elevate underground independent watchmakers to international visibility, and it planted the seed for everything that followed.

Having departed Harry Winston after Opus V in 2005, Büsser funded his own new company by traveling the world to pre-sell a watch that existed only as a sketch, convincing a handful of visionary retailers to pay in advance for something they could not yet hold: The Hour Glass in Singapore (Michael Tay), Westime in Los Angeles, Ahmed Seddiqi in Dubai, Ghadah in Kuwait, and Chronopassion in Paris. These became MB&F's first retail 'Friends' — a term that was not marketing language but structural reality.

The 'F' in MB&F stands for Friends — the collaborators, movement designers, engineers, engravers, case makers, and photographers whose names MB&F publishes openly, in radical contrast to an industry that had traditionally concealed its supply chain behind brand façades. The first Horological Machine, HM1, was unveiled in 2007 and remains a founding monument of contemporary avant-garde watchmaking. Its movement — designed with Peter Speake-Marin and engineer Laurent Besse, with the case by Eric Giroud — contained the world's first four-barrel movement in a wristwatch, the four barrels connected in both parallel and series, transmitting energy simultaneously from two sources to the regulating system; the result was 376 components, 81 functional jewels, a 7-day power reserve, and a central 60-second flying tourbillon elevated above the dial on a three-dimensional vertical stage.

The Horological Machine series continued through the decades with a portfolio that drew its visual and conceptual inspiration from childhood obsessions (space, sci-fi, supercars, aviation, architecture, the animal kingdom) and translated them into working mechanical art: HM2 (retrograde date, bi-hemisphere moon phase, jumping hour); HM3 Frog (a leaping amphibian); HM4 Thunderbolt (2010 GPHG Best Concept and Design Watch — twin turbine nacelles housing twin balances); HM5 On the Road Again; HM6 Space Pirate (2015 Red Dot: Best of the Best); HM7 Aquapod (jellyfish); HM8 Can Am (racing car); HM9 Flow (Art Deco aviation/automotive, twin balance wheels in aerodynamic pods with a differential combining their outputs); HM10 Bulldog (twin domed sapphire crystal 'eyes', power reserve displayed by the opening and closing of the bulldog's jaw); HM11 (rotating case allowing the wearer to select displayed function, including a temperature display).

The Legacy Machine series launched in 2011 as an equally radical proposition: what if the aesthetic language of the Horological Machines — particularly the elevated regulating organ — were applied to a classically proportioned round watch in the tradition of the 19th-century masters? The LM1 — co-created with Jean-François Mojon and Kari Voutilainen — placed a massive free-sprung balance wheel suspended above two independent time displays, hovering over a domed dial, with the movement's power transmitted vertically upward through the architecture. It won the GPHG Best Men's Watch and Public Prize in 2012. The LM2 — co-created with Kari Voutilainen — added a bi-hemisphere moon phase; the LM Perpetual (2015, by Stephen McDonnell) introduced a patented 'mechanical processor' perpetual calendar architecture that replaces delicate levers with a more reliable, intuitive mechanism and won the GPHG Calendar Watch Prize 2016; the LM FlyingT (2019) was the first MB&F watch designed for women — a flying tourbillon rising 6.5mm above the dial under a sapphire dome, with the time display tilted 50 degrees toward the wearer only — and won the GPHG Ladies Complication Prize 2019; the LM Thunderdome (with Eric Coudray and Kari Voutilainen) houses the world's fastest triple-axis tourbillon, the innermost cage rotating in 8 seconds; the LM Sequential EVO (by Stephen McDonnell, 2022–2023) features a dual column-wheel chronograph with the patented Twinverter binary pusher enabling four independent timing modes and jewelled vertical clutches — and won the GPHG Aiguille d'Or in 2022, independent watchmaking's highest prize; the LM Sequential Flyback (2023) extended the concept further.

Across its two decades, MB&F has accumulated nine GPHG awards, 22 in-house calibres, approximately 4,500 timepieces created, and a near-70-person team. The brand is also the creator of the M.A.D. Gallery concept — M.A.D. standing for Mechanical Art Devices — which it launched in Geneva in 2011 as a retail environment treating horological machines as art objects displayed alongside kinetic sculpture and mechanical artworks by other artists, rather than conventional watch retail. There are now four M.A.D. Galleries: Geneva, Taipei, Dubai, and Hong Kong. A second, more democratic MB&F brand — M.A.D.Editions — produces watches at more accessible price points with the same creative ethos. The Gaïa Prix for entrepreneurship was awarded to Büsser in 2018. Notable collaborators and Friends across MB&F's history include Stephen McDonnell (the Northern Irish watchmaker who co-created the LM Perpetual and LM Sequential, perhaps the most important single contributor to the Legacy Machine series), Jean-François Mojon, Kari Voutilainen, Eric Coudray, Peter Speake-Marin (who went on to found his own brand), Eric Giroud, Laurent Besse, and designer Maximilian Maertens — a Berlin-based designer who began as an MB&F intern in 2017 and is now co-leading creative projects, with the first Büsser–Maertens co-designed wristwatch scheduled for 2026. David Candaux also worked at MB&F before founding his own independent atelier. In August 2024, Chanel acquired a 25% minority stake in MB&F — joining F.P. Journe and Romain Gauthier in Chanel's high-watchmaking portfolio — with Büsser retaining 60% and co-founder Serge Kriknoff holding 15%. The partnership provides long-term financial security without compromising creative independence.