MB&F Launches Its Very First Women's Watch

In a bid to be more than just an ultra-masculine watch brand, MB&F launches its very first women’s watch, the Legacy Machine FlyingT

- Tan Wei Lin

With a reputation for producing some of the most avant-garde timepieces, so mechanically and aesthetically extreme that they are often referred to as “machines”, it is hard to imagine MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser being stumped for ideas. Yet, he found himself in this very conundrum when working on the Legacy Machine FlyingT, the brand’s first-ever women’s watch.

“The task was virtually impossible at the beginning. Not only had I completely lost any reflexes as to how to create for someone else—because the essential goal of starting MB&F was creating just for myself—I had to admit that I have no idea what a woman wants, and often not only in timepieces!” quips Büsser.

Introducing a women’s watch to its line-up this year was an unexpected move that upped the ante of the creative game at MB&F. For the company, it represents the opening of a new avenue of horological exploration and challenges, a strategy Büsser implements every seven years (since he first started the business in 2005) to take its creativity on a new trajectory. In 2012, Büsser introduced the Legacy Machine family as a channel to reinvent traditional watchmaking. The line is completely different from the contemporary, rule-bending Horological Machines that came before it.

This year, he decided to step into the feminine side of watchmaking. “Four years ago, it hit me that my whole family was not only very small but made up of women: my mother, my wife and my daughter. In the meantime, my mother has passed away, and we have a second daughter. It was time to take one of the biggest creative risks of my life—to create a piece for them,” says Büsser.