Maximilian Busser is pushing the boundaries of watchmaking

Dubai-based owner and creative director of Swiss watch brand MB&F talks about innovating and making the most of failure

Dubai-based watch entrepreneur Maximilian Busser at his M.A.D. Gallery. Photo: MB&F

“I worship 18th and 19th-century watchmen,” explains Maximilian Busser. “When you look at what was created between the 1720s and 1870s, basically everything which is being sold today was created 200 years ago.” Busser is smiling as he speaks, but his admiration is clear. A fervent outlier since launching MB&F in 2005, he is on something of a personal mission to bring free thinking back into watchmaking, exploring the outer edges of what is possible.

Having started at Jaeger-LeCoultre and then Harry Winston Rare Timepieces as managing director, Busser is fully versed in the intricacies of time, and can cite its history with passion. He explains, for example, that the oldest clock in the world is from circa 1386, and that a self-taught English clockmaker (John Harrison, if you’re interested) was the first to successfully measure longitude, enabling his country to dominate the seas in the 1700s. “These were the true geniuses,” the MB&F founder explains.

In a nod to this history, the brand describes itself as the world’s first horological concept laboratory, creating timepieces that sit beyond convention.

Today MB&F, 25 per cent of which is owned by Chanel, is divided into several divisions that aim to bring the unimaginable and unique to as wide a clientele as possible. Horological Machines deals with the highest level of watchmaking, deconstructed into new and imaginative forms, while Legacy Machines is a nod to the craftsmanship of the 19th century industry forebears.

MB&F Co-Creations is the arm that concentrates on collaborating with other companies and designers, and the most recent division, Mad Creations, looks to offer the same watch expertise, but at a more accessible price point. The company as a whole looks to bring together creatives, specialists and experts under one roof – in fact the company initials stand for Maximilian Busser & Friends – and has had some remarkable results.

Take the 2014 release MB&F Horological Machine No 6 (HM6) “Space Pirate”, which is part watch, part space ship, featuring a biomorphic case with a crystal sapphire sphere in each corner, with two that display hours and minutes, and two showing the spinning twin turbines. A fifth cupola in the centre shows a flying tourbillon that took three years to develop.

HM11 Architect, which was released in 2023, is shaped like a tiny 1960s building with a winged roof, about 42mm wide, and in grade 5 titanium, while the complex HM9 Sapphire Vision is closer in design to the swept lines of a 1940s jet engine than a wrist watch. Then there is the Legacy Machine Split Escapement, which was created when designer Stephen McDonnell realised that having designed a perpetual calendar with the flywheel in the centre, there was nowhere for the escapement. His solution? To float the balance wheel over the dial, and put the anchor and escape wheel on the other side of the movement. It was an unheard-of yet elegant solution.

One watch stands out perhaps, but for the wrong reason. The 2012 HM5 was inspired by early supercars and another independent watch company, Amida. With its face at right angles to the wrist and shutters on the upper surface, it delighted the industry, but failed to connect with clients. However, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, product creation executive director at Bvlgari, was impressed enough with the HM5 to congratulate Busser on it.

“The HM5 was our biggest flop,” Busser laughs, “but I love that watch dearly because even if we lost millions on it, it is extraordinary. It allowed me when I met Fabrizio to connect, so just for that, it was worth losing millions.” This shared aesthetic soon turned into a project working on the 2021 Legacy Machine FlyingT Allegra – a gem-studded flying tourbillon for women, under a milled dome of sapphire crystal and limited to only 20 pieces.

“I have been doing collars for the better part of 25 years, and the first one we did with Fabrizio and Bvlgari on the Allegra was just mind-boggling. It was so fantastic. We’re just two humans, two creators, and it worked because we’ve got the same sort of passion,” Busser says.

More recently, Buonamassa Stigliani reached out a second time, with an idea to rework the Bvlgari Serpenti into a watch for men. Busser admits at being daunted at the prospect. “When you touch an icon like Serpenti, you are terrified, but luckily, I had a good mentor in Fabrizio, who took all the risk doing the sketches that I would not have dared to take on. If Bvlgari had come to me and said, ‘here, you do it,’ I would have said 'no'.”

Together, the pair created a sensual shape modelled on a snake’s head, but based on the fluid form of the HM10 Bulldog, and with more than a hint of racing car about it. Busser admits that the pair had a lot of fun with the design. “Fabrizio used to be a car designer and I always dreamt of being a car designer, and at some point we were like ‘is anybody looking? Let’s put carburettors!’ And that’s how it happened.”

With his company now 20 years old, he is free to collaborate with anyone he wants and is comfortable turning down those that do not fit with his values. “My parents were probably the most respectful and honest people I’ve ever met,” he explains.

“My mum was a Zoroastrian – an Indian Parsee – and my dad was Swiss, which is pretty amazing 60 years ago.” They impressed on him the importance of treating others with respect. “I was brought up with good thoughts, good words, good deeds and to treat people the way you want to be treated. Be kind,” Busser explains.

Being kind and having fun are not mutually exclusive, it seems. He points at a tiny axe engraved on the crown of his watch, a nod to an early 1970s Japanese anime. “When I was a kid, I watched Grendizer [from TV's Goldorak], this transformer robot, saving the world. I was 10 years old. I would then go into my room, and I was Grendizer,” he laughs.

Looking to retain that childlike joy perhaps and despite an often six-figure ticket, today every MB&F carries a tiny reference to that childhood here somewhere. “That’s the kid in me,” he admits.