It is not all gloom and doom this year, as a few of the haute horlogerie marques seem to be doing well. We speak to Maximilian Büsser, founder of MB&F, about how this year has been for the brand and about collaborations…
This year has been a busy one for MB&F as you have launched HM 10, MB&F x H. Moser, and the Starfleet Explorer; how did you manage all of this in the first six months, considering the COVID pandemic and the world political situation?
Actually, we did cut back on some of our launches; some have been postponed from the first half of the year to the second half, while some more have been moved from the second half to the next year. On March 17, when I had to send the whole team home – it is the first time I had to do something like that – I was very depressed as I didn’t know what was going to happen. But, two weeks later, we had one-third of the team back working because we actually had demands and requests for watches. But the R&D never stopped.
We usually come out with 8-10 new products a year, but not completely new calibres each time. This year, we have one new calibre – the Bulldog; we did two last year, FlyingT and Thunderdome. We have some really interesting projects coming out in the second half of this year. What we have done is cut down the number of pieces we are producing; we had planned to increase production from 210 last year to 260 this year, but now we probably will do just 150-160.
Your collaboration with H. Moser & Cie. was totally unexpected, especially as the two brands are so different and yet so unique; how did that come about?
It is only interesting to collaborate with people who are different. It is very interesting to work with H. Moser because even though we are the same-size company, we have completely different volumes, products, and characteristics. We have been working with H. Moser for nearly 10 years; though most people don’t realise it, our hairsprings come from Precision Engineering, which is H. Moser. I admire what they have done; they took a super-conservative, classic watch company and made it cool, made it a success. They have made 20-year-olds want to buy H. Moser watches – round, classic watches. They have that sense of humour, something that is different. They pulled it off, kudos to them.
Around two years ago, I approached Edouard and said that I would love to have one of your fumé dials on one of my pieces. He came back and said, “Yes, thank you but you would have to do something for me… it is unfair that MB&F has something by H. Moser if H. Moser doesn’t have something by MB&F.” I racked my brains, and it took a good part of 6-7 months to find a good idea. I then called him up; we arranged to meet up at the Montreux Jazz Café at the Geneva airport as he had to take a flight, and I showed him the prototype of the FlyingT. This was in the second half of 2018, and I said that this is my new concept and if you accept, maybe we can put this kind of dial on one of your pieces. He agreed and then he came back to us with the whole idea of the hairsprings.
He asked me if we would like their double hairspring; of course, we would love their double hairspring. He said that we could have it for our LM101; we had developed our cylindrical hairspring with them for our Thunderdome. He asked me if they could use it for their piece and I of course agreed. After all, they had developed it for us. It became a story of friendship and then a story of hairsprings. I think what is really interesting is that if you look at both of our pieces, you don’t know if it is an H. Moser or an MB&F piece. We realised that if we do not put a logo on one of the pieces, nobody would know which one was which. If you take the H. Moser logo off, it could be an MB&F piece.
Your Starfleet Explorer is a price-conscious piece and a very timely launch; was it originally planned to be released at this time?
Everything we released was planned for that time except the H. Moser collaboration, which was supposed to be unveiled at Watches and Wonders as our collaboration was supposed to go much further. We were planning to have the same booth at Watches and Wonders – with two separate entrances but completely open. People could actually go from one to the other and in the middle would be our two collaborations. We had worked this whole project together to show that Together We are Stronger. And that was incredible timing; in this time and age, in the COVID era when everybody was blocked at home, I think people realised that we may have forgotten to be kind to the people around us. On the other hand, another of our Co-Creations with L’Epée, the Starfleet Explorer was planned to be a price-conscious piece; the whole project was how to bring out our collaboration under CHF 10,000.
Any chances of bringing out another Music Machine?
I would love to do another project with Reuge; we have a few projects that we have pitched to them, but the company is going through a complete change – change in management, in ownership and so on. Once they come back to us, we will do something.
You have put your footprint in nearly every field, such as writing instruments, the loupe system; is there anything you are looking at for the future?
There is one thing I would love to do; I have designed an incredible espresso machine. I would love it if an espresso machine manufacturer could take my idea and make it work. That is the whole idea of Co-Creations; we just have ideas, L’Epée, Caran d’Ache, and Loupe System engineer them and produce them. We come up with the design, the idea and most of the technical drawings sometimes, and they do it. A lot of people ask me why I don’t do it myself. I don’t know how to do espresso machines; I wouldn’t even know how to sell one. I want to create mechanical art – in different ways.
The Thunderdome has taken Legacy Machines on a totally different angle; are future LMs going to take their DNA from the Thunderdome?
In March 2021, you are going to see LMX, Legacy Machine X, which will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Legacy Machine. Yes, it will be in that direction, but we are not abandoning the existing style. I am interested in going more and more 3-D, so the movement becomes more 3-D but still very comfortable to wear. In October, you will see an evolution of our existing Legacy Machine, which will be more versatile. You can go jump in a swimming pool wearing it.
