Amidst a flurry of updates on my Youtube feed, there’s one from recent times that has stayed with me—it’s a video featuring Michael Tay, who heads the Singapore-based luxury watch retailer, The Hour Glass. In it, Tay shares a personal account of how he came to meet and know independent watch brand MB&F’s founder Maximilian Büsser, after which he goes on to extol Max’s interpersonal skills. But it’s the unwavering commitment to his work despite the troughs (the horology brand came close to bankruptcy several times) that gets Tay teary-eyed. He chokes up in the end, but not before congratulating Max for having pulled it off.
Indeed, the feat being referenced in this video from MB&F’s ‘20 Friends, 20 Stories’ series is a significant one: for 2025 marks the 20th anniversary for the brand (incidentally, my own career as a writer-editor has a similar timeline, for I landed my very first media job back in 2005). And to celebrate this milestone, the watch brand has been unveiling innovative timepieces throughout the year, a recent launch being the SP One (SP refers to ‘Special Projects’). Launched this May, it has the barrel, balance wheel and dial levitating in perfect harmony; at 38mm, it’s also MB&F’s slimmest and smallest watch.
MB&F SP One Platinum and Rose Gold
This comes in addition to the latest unveiling of the MB&F HM8 Mark 2, and that of two Limited Editions (20 pieces each) in January; namely, the LM Perpetual Longhorn and the LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn. Both watch models come with longer lugs (horns) lending them their names, and while the former has a 581-component, fully integrated and purpose-built movement that eliminates the drawbacks of conventional perpetual calendars, the LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn is based on the LM Sequential, which won MB&F the coveted GPHG Aiguille d’Or award in 2022.
MB&F LM Perpetual Longhorn
Which brings us to the question: how did MB&F, to quote Tay, make it thus far? Understanding this requires us to delve deep into its very core, which in turn is made up of two parts—‘MB’ (aka Max Büsser) and ‘F’ (for Friends of the brand).
Maximilian Büsser: The Creative Adult, aka the Child Who Survived
MB&F founder Maximilian Busser – Photo by Eric Rossier
The first thing that pops up on the screen when you visit the MB&F website is a simple declaration, ‘A Creative Adult is a Child Who Survived’. That in itself should tell you a lot about its maverick founder, Maximilian Büsser (Max to his friends). Max’s journey has surely seen him indulge his creative streak; after starting his watchmaking career at legacy brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, he joined Harry Winston timepieces as the CEO, where he launched the famous Opus line of ultra-complicated mechanical watches, therein helping the luxury brand’s revenue grow multifold.
And while many would have been content enjoying the fruits of their labour, Max wanted more. Driven by an urge to deconstruct traditional watchmaking into 3-dimensional kinetic art, he quit his job at HW and set up MB&F, calling it the ‘world’s first-ever horological concept laboratory’.
Two years later (2007) came the very first MB&F watch, the Horological Machine N°1 (HM1). A groundbreaking timepiece, it was hailed for featuring the world’s first movement with four barrels connected in both parallel and series, as well as the first wristwatch movement to have energy transmitted to the regulating system from two sources simultaneously.
MB&F HM1
Since then, MB&F has unveiled several HMs and also launched a series aimed at celebrating 19th century watchmaking, aka the Legacy Machines (LM). This line too has been lauded by the watch industry; and while much has been written about both series over the years, The Cornea Impression (TCI) spoke to Max Büsser himself to have him describe each of the brand’s creations in a few words. Here’s what he had to say:
- Horological Machine N°1 (HM1): “The Foundation”
- Horological Machine N°2 (HM2): “First foray into my horological psychotherapy”
- Horological Machine N°2.2 Black Box (HM2.2 Black Box): “Our very first collab”
- Horological Machine N°2 Only Watch (HM2 Only Watch): “Unnervingly Violent”
- Horological Machine N°3 (HM3): “To boldly go where no man has gone before”
- Horological Machine N°3 Frog (HM3 Frog): “Because… why not?”
- JwlryMachine: “The 3D kinetic artists meet the 3D jewelry artists”
- Moonmachine: “Stepan Sarpaneva rules!”
- Horological Machine N°4 (HM4 Thunderbolt, HM4 Razzle Dazzle, HM4 Double Trouble, HM4 RT and HM4 Final Edition): “The biggest creative leap of faith ever”
- Horological Machine N°4 Only Watch (HM4 Only Watch): “The original MB&F panda”
- Horological Machine N°3 Megawind (HM3 Megawind): “Size matters”
- Horological Machine N°5 (HM5): “Sadly misunderstood”
- Horological Machine N°6 (HM6): “Horological hyperspace”
- HMX: “How to say Thank you, without saying Thank you”
- Black Badger Editions: “Let’s shed some light”
- Horological Machine N°7 (HM7 Aquapod): “The mechanical jellyfish”
- Horological Machine N°8 (HM8): “Petrolhead required”
- Moonmachine 2: “We all need a moon”
- HM8 Only Watch: “Innocence”
- Horological Machine N°9 (HM9 Flow and HM9 Sapphire Vision): “From a time when engineers followed their instincts, not wind tunnels”
- Horological Machine N°10 (HM10 Bulldog): “Man’s best friend”
- HM10 Panda Only Watch: “Panda strikes back”
- Horological Machine N°8 Mark 2 (HM8 Mark 2): “The ‘best of’ our supercar dreams packed into a small but mighty punch”
- Horological Machine N°11 (HM11 Architect): “Age of reason (really?)”
- Legacy Machine N°1 (LM1): “Never say never”
- Legacy Machine N°1 Xia Hang (LM1 Xia Hang): “Whimsical”
- Legacy Machine N°2 (LM2): “Tribute to Philippe Dufour”
- Legacy Machine 101: “From flop to top”
- Legacy Machine N°1 Silberstein (LM1 Silberstein): “Alain at his best”
- Legacy Machine Perpetual: “Stephen McDonnell’s first ever Masterpiece”
- Legacy Machine Split Escapement: “A complicated simple idea”
- Legacy Machine FlyingT: “Love, just love”
- Legacy Machine Thunderdome: “Triple-axis insanity”
- LM101 MB&F x H. Moser & Cie.: “Two-way highway”
- Legacy Machine FlyingT Ice & Blizzard: “Ice can be sizzling hot”
- Legacy Machine X: “The LM1 on steroids”
- Legacy Machine Perpetual EVO: “Everywhere anytime”
- MB&F x Eddy Jaquet 2020: “Let the world finally discover Eddy’s insane talent”
- MB&F x Bulgari LM FlyingT Allegra: “The beginning of a friendship”
- Legacy Machine Split Escapement EVO: “Mohammed Seddiqi’s twist”
- Legacy Machine Sequential EVO: “Stephen’s second Masterpiece – and GPHG award ‘Aiguille d’Or’ winner”
- Legacy Machine Sequential Flyback: “Stephen never rests”
- H. Moser x MB&F Streamliner Pandamonium: “The Panda returns – as a DJ spinning an Indie remix”
- Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti: “Pure talent – Fabrizio Buonamassa transforms a Bvlgari icon into a Horological Machine”
- SP One: “Most beautiful 20th anniversary gift to myself – total creative freedom”
MB&F LM Flying T – Lapis Lazuli
With a roster as prolific as seen above, MB&F has, not surprisingly, dealt with its own set of challenges: Max is known to have poured his savings into the brand and paid for the development of complex watch movements without any external investors or credit lines. But given how the brand recently sold a significant stake to Chanel, it is clear how MB&F, a relatively young and independent watch brand, has gone on to champion concept-led craftsmanship in an industry that has stalwarts upholding traditional watchmaking for centuries.
MB&F @ 20: Getting By With A Little Help From His Friends
Time and again, Max has emphasised the power of people and how they have contributed to his journey. Having put this into practice at Harry Winston as well, (where he collaborated with independent watchmakers such as FP Journe for the Opus series), it is no wonder that Max chose to name his brand MB&F, aka ‘Max Busser and Friends’, where the friends refer to fellow manufacturers, designers, watchmakers, and even the timepiece owners, who are considered part of the MB&F community and are essential to the brand’s philosophy.
Friends of MB&F
And so it is that MB&F has several collaborations to its credit: be it working with Eric Giroud, Laurent Besse, and Peter Speake-Marin on the HM1, the LM N°1 movement created by Jean-François Mojon and Kari Voutilainen, or the brand’s winning collab with independent watchmaker Stephen McDonnell that spans several stunning timepieces (including the hallowed LM Perpetual and this year’s Longhorns). Other instances include joint efforts with music box maker REUGE, independent watch brand H.Moser & Cie., leading luxury brand Bvlgari (think of the recent Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti) and of course, its association with clockmaker L’Epée 1839 that has over the years birthed stunning beauties such as the Albatross, ORB, T-Rex, Sherman, Melchior clocks (among many more).
Bvlgari x MB&F Serpenti
L’Epée 1839 X MB&F Albatross
MB&F LM1 Rose Gold
Above all else though, it’s the community of watch lover friends who have contributed to MB&F’s success, a fact that is amply evident in the brand’s celebratory series, ‘20 Friends, 20 Stories’. On that merry note, here’s wishing MB&F a very happy 20th anniversary!
