Elite Traveler May-June 2018

elite traveler MAY/JUNE 2018 51

“If I was a supplier to a watchbrand, I would like that brand to tell everyone, but brands didn’t do that. I vowed I would.”

customers crazy enough to buy one of our pieces so that we could have funds to build the next one, and finding enough talent to make those 3D ideas a reality when nobody in the watch world was doing it. But for me, the greatest business driver is the idea of ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could…’.” MB&F, which Büsser aptly describes as having evolved into a “creative lab,” has been wildly successful. In the 13 years since starting, the brand has created more than a dozen unique horological machines, as well as a half dozen Legacy machines (round watches that Büsser says look like what he would have created 100 years ago), and about a dozen Performance Art pieces created in cooperation with other artists. Additionally, MB&F has embarked on innovative collaborations with Swiss manufactures to bring clocks, robots, automatons and music boxes to life.

savings, but I wanted to build something I could be proud of,” says Büsser. “I based the company on one motto: treat people the way you want to be treated. For instance, If I was a supplier to a watch brand, I’d like that brand to tell everyone that I’m their supplier, but most didn’t do that. I vowed I would. I have a lot of good ideas, but without the best people and suppliers around me, my ideas would just stay in my head.” Thus, Büsser put ‘friends’ in the brand name. He also decided to call his timepieces horological machines. “I had this dream that watchmaking is an art and I wanted to deconstruct the watch and reconstruct it as mechanical sculpture.” For the first couple of years, Büsser worked alone, developing ideas for his horological machines, traveling the world with a suitcase of sketches to spread the word and convince retail

partners to join him on his journey. Just 11 years ago, in 2007, MB&F unveiled the first Horological Machine HM1, and it wowed the world. “I was terrified. I was creating products I loved but did not know if anyone would ever buy one because they were crazy, wild products. The epitome was in 2010 with HM4 Thunderbolt. I kept saying to my team, ‘Nobody will buy this,’ yet everyone jumped on it when it came out. I knew then that we were on course.” Indeed, there is truly nothing in the watch-and-clock world like MB&F. Büsser, with his magnetic personality and positive determination, conquered challenge after challenge in the building of his company, not least convincing good people to join his tiny team on a tiny budget. “The challenges ranged from raising the cash to create movements, to finding

MB&F has even bridged the idea of art and watches, opening three MAD Galleries that are anything but typical watch boutiques. In these galleries, horological machines are displayed alongside mechanical art that runs the gamut from handmade motorcycles to automatons, lighting structures and more. “I thought of the galleries as decoding machines. If you understand why this motorbike, for instance, is a work of art, then maybe you understand that my HM7 Aquapod is a work of art.” With so many aspects to the MB&F business, Büsser says his life is like a juggler’s; keeping everything in the air at once is primary. “You can’t think about if you are going to make money and still be creative. You have to be willing to lose it all and be proud that you tried. I never set out to be a success. That wasn’t why I started MB&F. I wanted to be proud and happy, and I think I am there.”