Founded in 2005, MB&F took the world by storm with its small series of highly technical and avant-garde timepieces. Now, the brand known for its futuristic watches, clocks, and collaborations has released the coffee-table book ‘MB&F: The First Fifteen Years’, compiled by watch experts Suzanne Wong and William Massena. Published by Editions de La Martinière and distributed by Abrams, the 312-page book highlights the 160 MB&F watches crafted from 2005 to 2020, including prototypes and unreleased pieces, and features 400 photographs.
MB&F: The First Fifteen Years is a must-have for any MB&F patron – it is essentially a ‘catalogue raisonné’ or a detailed annotated listing of all the watches of the brand, including details of each of those watches. As a result, the tome also details each of the brand’s 18 calibres for both Horological and Legacy Machines, along with a final section of the co-creations produced by their partners. While MB&F is known to not create bespoke timepieces, the book also chronicles the unique pieces it had created in 2009 and 2010, “when times were hard”. The first 30 pages are dedicated to the birth of MB&F.
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“The idea for the project came about when a customer who had bought an LM2 in red gold wrote to me asking how many models had been made,” explains MB&F founder, Maximilian Büsser. “So, I looked it up and told him that his timepiece was one of 31 pieces made. He wrote back in complete surprise, saying that it couldn’t possibly be correct as his watch wasn’t a limited edition. I told him that the number was right and he was ecstatic!” By sheer coincidence, at about the same time, our friend William Massena suggested the idea of a Catalogue Raisonné to me. So the idea was born from this interaction to share our whole body of work in full transparency.”
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Only 2,000 copies will distributed by Abrams, and 1,500 copies are meant exclusively for MB&F partners and will come in a special protective box made of the same high-density foam used to package MB&F timepieces (priced at US$ 220). The remaining 500 copies, without the special packaging, will be sold through the publishing house’s network of stores starting October 2022 (priced at US$ 170).
Pre-orders for 'MB&F: The First Fifteen Years' are open at the M.A.D.Gallery eShop.
All images: Courtesy MB&F