Interview with Charris Yadigaroglou, Head of Communication at Maximilian Büsser & Friends According to Charris Yadigaroglou these key values are integral part of MB&F, independence, collaboration, transparency, creative freedom and mechanical art. "And don’t take yourself too seriously!", he adds. This is formula to outstanding and creative contributions to the haute horologie by the Swiss based MB&F. MB&F is an award-winning, innovative horological lab with international scoop and clientel, can you present in short MB&F and its placement in the market? CY: "MB&F is not a watch brand in the traditional sense, but rather a horological creative lab – whose purpose is to create mechanical art, most often in the form of kinetic sculptures for the wrist more commonly called watches. We do this in an extremely open and transparent way, thanks to a wide network of “Friends” – the many talented people who contribute in one way or another to our Machines." How important is Baselworld to MB&F? CY: "This year was our best Baselworld ever! And as always, the orders we register during the fair are very significant, representing more than a third of our annual sales. Add about the same for the other major watch fair, SIHH in Geneva, and you’ll understand why the two fairs are so important to us: together they represent about 3/4 of our annual revenue." MB&F presented here MoonMachine 2, brands's second collaboration with Stepan Sarpaneva, who is renowned manufacturer of "exceptional timepieces". How this came? CY: "MoonMachine2 is a good example of what we like to do: it is based on our existing pieces, Horological Machine No.8
(please see image above). But we then asked a very good Friend – and very talented watchmaker/designer – to reinterpret it. The result is an absolutely hybrid watch: instantly recog-nizable as MB&F but also instantly recognizable as Sarpaneva. Neither of us could have created this on our own – we needed each other to develop this co-creation."
their timepieces very personally; they are very self-confident (you need to be brave to wear some of our timepieces!) and they really don’t care whether their entourage approves of their choices." How does MB&F staying desirable in time? CY: "At MB&F we ignore any form of market or consumer research when How transparent is MB&F about various creating our Machines. I think this is partners and collaborators? paradoxically why our creations stay CY: "More and more, collectors and relevant and desirable, in today’s the public in general demand over-marketed and standardized world, trans-parency – they are fed up with where products tend to look more and brands trying to trick them to believe more alike. We offer a true alternative. things which are simply not true. Transparency, which has from Day 1 What is the inspiration and story behind been a central element of our brand is each timepiece that MB&F creates? absolutely key to our success." CY:" Inspiration comes from various sources, but the inspiration behind our Who is typical MB&F watch collector? Horological Machines comes from the CY: "They are extremely diverse in dreams and powerful emotions we had terms of general background, culture, during our childhood: science fiction, geography, business experience, etc. – space exploration, airplanes and super but most are self-made men and cars. For our more classic Legacy women, real entrepreneurs. They Machines, the inspiration is a bit more obviously need a fair amount of wealth intellectual: we revisit classic to afford our timepieces, but they have watch-making complications in a very succeeded on their own and choose 3-dimensional, contemporary way.