MB&F: 20 Years of Friendship, and Imagination
Founded on rebellion and built by friends, MB&F turns timekeeping into storytelling. Two decades on, it remains defiantly human. Each machine is a tribute to imagination, collaboration, and the courage to create without compromise.
by Merve Eker
Marking its twentieth anniversary this year, MB&F is not so much a watchmaker as it is a quiet rebellion—a living testament to the alchemy of people, ideas, and shared ambition. Since its founding in 2005 by Maximilian Büsser, the brand has cultivated a reputation not only for radical timepieces but also for the radical humanism that fuels them. Every machine begins in conversation—with engineers, artists, designers, and kindred spirits whose fingerprints remain on every finished piece.
To understand the deeper current behind MB&F, one must listen to its internal mythology. What emerges is less a corporate profile than a narrative in motion—one where the “F” in “Friends” is less symbolic than structural, inscribed into each decision, each partnership, each machine.
A Creative Rebellion
Maximilian Büsser’s path began with engineering and a penchant for car design—disciplines of form and function—before veering toward mechanical artistry. Years spent at Jaeger-LeCoultre and then as Managing Director at Harry Winston gave him a view from the summit of traditional horology. And then he left it. “From all those experiences I created my dream company: MB&F—dedicated to create what we believed in and what made us proud, without ever considering if any client would follow us,” he says. “100% creative centric. A company where we would only work with people who share the same values, who treat others the way we want to be treated.”
Since unveiling its first Horological Machine in 2007, MB&F has taken independent watchmaking somewhere stranger, softer, and more dimensional. Its watches resemble miniature sci-fi worlds—spacecraft, deep-sea creatures, kinetic riddles. But beneath the fantasy lies a rigorous belief in creative freedom. “When I created MB&F, I thought the goal was creating extraordinary kinetic sculptures,” Maximilian reflects. “Fifteen years later, I realized the journey—all the people I had interacted with and all the stories we had lived—was actually more important than the creations themselves.”
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