Sarpaneva

Stepan Sarpaneva is one of very few Finnish watchmakers of international stature — a rare compatriot of Kari Voutilainen, though unlike Voutilainen he chooses to craft his watches in Helsinki. He trained at WOSTEP in Neuchâtel and spent 10 years in Switzerland working for Christophe Claret, Parmigiani Fleurier, Piaget, and Vianney Halter before returning to Finland. His work is deeply rooted in Nordic nature — the Aurora Borealis, the stars, seasons, the moon, and the midnight sun of his homeland inspire every collection. His iconic Korona case with its scalloped profile is a house signature, as is his characterful human-faced moon. He even has his own Moon app.

Current collection: Stardust (Pluto and Mars variants, €16,500–19,000), Firehorse (€18,500), Supernova (€16,000), Supernova Moonphase (grey/blue dials with red or white gold moons, €24,500), and Lunations (in-house moonphase calibre, €39,500). The Lunations Engraved (€51,000) was a landmark piece. Notable legacy models include: K0 Northern Lights (luminescent lattice dial, collaborated with Black Badger's James Thompson); Northern Stars / K1 Black Enamel (grand feu enamel by Donzé Cadrans); K3 Northern Stars Guilloche; Four Seasons; Midnight Sun; Näkki Harvest Moon; Dragonskin; and K0 Emali. He also collaborated with MB&F on the Moon Machine. His in-house movement features a moon phase accurate to 1 second per 14,000 years.

The MB&F collaboration deepened in 2018 with MoonMachine 2, built on the Horological Machine Nº8 case and billed as the world's first projected moonphase display: an optical prism refracts the hours, minutes, and moon disc vertically, while HM8's signature battle-axe rotor is reimagined as an openworked radial web of titanium carrying Sarpaneva's own gold moon face, with two further hand-finished gold moons — just 4.5mm and 8.5mm across — set elsewhere in the movement. MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser has described the project as only possible because of a long friendship built on honesty, noting that neither man would have attempted it alone; Sarpaneva, in turn, has said Büsser is the one collaborator who reliably pushes him toward his most difficult work. The Stardust series, introduced in 2023 to mark the brand's 20th anniversary, continues that spirit of technical risk-taking into 2026 with the Pluto and Mars editions housed in the signature scalloped Korona case — sharing a common construction but built as opposing 'studies in atmosphere,' one cast in the frozen silver stillness suggested by its name, the other in smouldering red-gold warmth. Between his own Helsinki workshop, the more accessible S.U.F. Helsinki line, and periodic returns to the MB&F universe, Stepan Sarpaneva remains the rare watchmaker whose entire creative signature — a face, carved into the moon itself — is instantly recognisable across every register of his work, from four-figure sport watches to six-figure collaborations.