We love Zara as much as the next girl, but truth be told, sometimes it feels more fulfilling to unearth a piece that likely no one in your circle owns. How do you achieve this without engaging in a full-fledged sartorial treasure hunt? With a few under-the-radar shops, that's how! Scroll down to see which ones we've got our eyes on right now.
GENEVA — On Rue Verdaine, a quiet cobblestone street in Old Town, well-dressed men stop to peer in the window of MB&F M.A.D. Gallery. Write out that mouthful of acronyms and you have Maximilian Büsser and Friends' Mechanical Art Devices — a showroom for what is no doubt the zaniest watchmaker on the planet, with particular allure for a certain type of adult male. Someone rather like the 48-year-old founder himself.
In the window on this December day were MB&F's latest creations: Legacy Machine Perpetual, introduced in November, a perpetual calendar in a round-case wristwatch; and the award-winning Horological Machine (HM6), also called Space Pirate (to the untrained eye, it looks like a race-car chassis).
"A creative adult is a child who survives," the energetic Max Büsser said as he entered the gallery. "That's our tagline."
Mr. Büsser, who loves to tell colorful stories, begins a cook's tour of the approximately 35 mechanical art devices on display. Some swing, oth ers turn, a few make noise. Apart from his team's creations — such as the Arachnophobia clock, a spider-looking timepiece created with the clockmaker L'Epée — virtually all come from little-known artists. An example? Gaby Wormann, who makes mechanical insects from vintage watch parts.
Photo On display at the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery in Geneva: ''Titanus Giganteus'' by Gaby Wormann, made from vintage watch parts. Credit Niels Ackermann for The New York TimesMr. Büsser buys 90 percent of the artists' pieces outright and then resells them. "The point is to showcase someone who has talent," he said, noting that the gallery draws an average of 25 visitors a day, and there are two others — one in Taipei and another just opening in Dubai.
"Someone gave me my chance 25 years ago. One guy believed in me, way more than I believed in myself, and gave me my first job," he said. "It's my time to give back."
Mr. Büsser, who is half Swiss and half Indian, spent his childhood drawing cars. When an expensive design school was out of reach, he completed a degree in microtechnology engineering in 1991 in Switzerland and set his sights on a corporate assignment abroad — until, on a ski slope in Verbier, he met Henry-John Belmont, then chief executive of Jaeger-LeCoultre.
"A week later, I get a call to come and see him," Mr. Büsser recalled. After three hours touring the rundown workshops, Mr. Belmont offered the 24-year-old the job of product manager. "He said one single phrase that would change my life," Mr. Büsser said: "Do you want to be one amongst 200,000 people in a big corporation, or one among the five who are going to save Jaeger?"
Mr. Büsser stayed for seven years but then, when he became managing director at Harry Winston Timepieces, Mr. Belmont stopped talking to him. "He probably saw this as a treason," Mr. Büsser s aid ruefully. "But then I bumped into him eight years ago and he said, 'I am proud of you.' That really meant something to me."
The Harry Winston job was nightmarish from the start. Virtually bankrupt, the company was put up for sale two weeks after Mr. Büsser signed his contract. "All the people wanted to leave," he recalled. "We had the wrong suppliers, wrong retailers, wrong product — and I couldn't pay the salaries."
Working 18-hour days, and getting an ulcer, Mr. Büsser turned the company around — creating the iconic Opus series by collaborating with top independent watchmakers and going from revenue of $8 million to $80 million in five years.
In 2005, with the equivalent of $980,000, Mr. Büsser introduced MB&F with the hope that — on the basis of a drawing — retailers would pay for orders two years before delivery.
While he got the advances for 25 watches from six retailers, his supplier was sold and Mr. Büsser wound up with 85 percent of the parts but no assembly plans. Fortunately, the independent watchmaker Peter Speake-Marin came to his rescue by calling in favors from four other independents. They managed the first two deliveries on time, just as Mr. Büsser's money ran out. "During the whole of 2007, I was delivering product at cost," he said. "It's not good to develop a business when you are making zero margin."
It would not be the last time Mr. Büsser stood on the brink. While the HM2, based on childhood space dreams, developed a strong following in 2008, the financial crisis slowed business to a trickle, forcing him to travel constantly to drum up clients.
And, in 2014, "we nearly went bankrupt," he said with a shudder. He reduced the output to one new movement, rather than two, each year and managed to avoid layoffs.
The company's 10th anniversary last year heralded a new agenda. Now that it had revenue of $15 million a year, Mr. Büsser moved to Dubai, which he said allows him more time to his wife and 2-year-old daughter, and more trips to Asia, as it is the company's biggest market, providing 39 percent of sales.
Also, "I don't want my company or team to grow," he said, noting he had already eliminated a quarter of what had been its 41 retailers. "We've never been this creative and prolific in development — but we are not growing."
(Earlier this month, MB&F announced a 33-piece edition of the Legacy Machine in platinum with its trademark pale-blue dial; the new LM101 will debut this week in Geneva at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie.)
Mr. Büsser is committed to producing 280 watches a year, giving each movement a five-year life span, and paying himself a salary that is half of what he was making at Harry Winston.
"We have hit a sweet spot where our sell out is higher than what we can produce," he said. "It's the first time in 10 years. I can now decide where I give my pieces. I will continue cutting back, working with fewer, but more dedicated, retailers."
Photo Mr. Büsser wearing the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual. Credit Niels Ackermann for The New York TimesAs he talked, Mr. Büsser checked the LM Perpetual he was wearing (it and the Space Pirate are his favorites). It is MB&F's newest movement, selling for 185,000 Swiss francs, or about $185,000, and he will wear it until November. "This perpetual calendar took four years to create — it's a complete revolution in the history of watchmaking," he said. The 50-piece edition was sold out in six weeks; 15 clients have received their watches, while the rest will get them in the course of this year and next.
As for future plans, Mr. Büsser observed: "I realize three women — my mother, wife and daughter — are my only family. So I am working on something for them that should come out in 2017 or '18."
"MB&F is as much my psychotherapy as my autobiography," he continued. "This is my life. Of course I am going to keep doing it, but I will never do pieces for the market. Everything I do, I create for myself."
MB&F's founder on:
Horological art and running a gallery
"We deconstruct traditional watchmaking and reconstruct it into a piece of 3-D kinetic art. Most people did not get it. We should present our pieces in art galleries, but they don't get it. And most normal watch retailers don't, either. So we created our own mechanical art gallery."
His parents' influence
"My parents were the most honest and respectful people I have ever met. I remember asking my mother, 'I never heard you say anything nasty about anyone?' And she just said, 'Why would we?"'
I'm not sure how to handle next graf, because there is a quote within a quote within another quote.
The company name
"When I created MB&F, everyone said, 'That's the lamest name ever for a watch brand. You can't call it "'& Friends."' But I wanted to put back the human being into the equation. Our world is filled today with technocrats, not people who love watches. They market their products through celebrities when the real celebrities are the watchmakers, engineers and artisans who created it. So we were trying to give them back the recognition they deserved. We're the only ones in the watch industry who give credit to all those who transform the sketch into reality."
Rich times vs. lean times
"You want your children to have a better life than you, but it's the tough part of your life that makes you the person you are. When I was at Harry Winston I made a lot of money. I would go to five-star hotels and lose my taste for everything. It had become 'normal.' When I set up my company, I would go out with my girlfriend for pizza once a month. That pizza was better than the three-star Michelin restaurant. I used to buy suits without paying attention. Suddenly I would buy only one sweater a year. Such an important sweater."
His role
"I have three caps. I am a timepiece creator . I am a M.A.D. Gallery curator. And now, I create mechanical art for other artisans who have a gift, but are struggling. I help re-energize them."
Work-life balance
"In Dubai, I work 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. when my daughter goes to nursery. From 3 p.m. until my daughter goes to sleep at 8 p.m., we are a family. We are always together."
His creative process
I sketch it and then work with Eric Giroud, the designer. He transforms it into a 3-D computer design. We go through five to 20 3-D prints. Then we go see the engineers and watchmakers and say, 'O.K., this is the concept, now let's create a movement.' From design to first piece it takes three to four years. It's an incredibly complex process."
Why Europe continues to be MB&F's smallest market
"Europeans are my most conservative clients. It's very difficult to take them out of their comfort zone. And they are massacred by taxes, so very few can spend on high-end products generally."
