Summer’s almost gone, but the new Grow Your Dreams collection from M.A.D. Editions with the models Sun, Nature, and Water are splashes of colours that will bring joy back into the quotidian post-holiday existence. With yellow rotor combined with a yellow and green strap, or the green rotor combined with a purple and red strap, or blue rotor combined with a dark and light blue strap, these ultra-chromatics might even have you reaching for your shades one more time before the leaves turn, well, yellow. Speaking of leaves, the rubber straps have a stamped leaf pattern, and the watches are delivered with two interchangeable straps: one of a “mismatched” colour and one white.
This latest edition of the M.A.D.1S, the affordable collection from MB&F, is developed together with British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori. The watch is famous for its front-side rotor and time display on the case side, whereas the artist is famous for combining strong and evocative colours from his childhood Nigeria with spaces and objects. Mr. Ilori was contacted by MB&F’s owner and creative director, Maximilian Büsser, who wanted him to create a watch – which evolved into a collection of three watches. “His work makes you feel alive, like a rush of adrenaline pushing you to go further. This collaboration has created something that brings joy – a reminder to realise your own dreams,” said Mr. Büsser.
With this collection named Grow Your Dreams, M.A.D. Editions shows again that it has its finger on the pulse. There are at least three trends or tendencies encompassed in this watch collection:
Affordable sister brands from high-end producers: This is not only an MB&F thing, Grönefeld, Hajime Asaoka, and Sarpaneva are all among the brands doing what Hans Wilsdorf did 99 years ago with Tudor;
The colour yellow;
Collabs across different industries.
The first point fits hand in glove with Mr. Ilori, whose work is underpinned by the belief that art and design should be accessible to all. M.A.D. Editions started as an accessible and playful haute horlogerie-flirt meant as a thank-you to the community around the brand back in 2021. Initially it was also a way of creating alternative income during Covid – before anyone knew what a positive impact the pandemic would have on independent watchmaking. What nobody could have anticipated was that M.A.D. Editions would keep growing with such popularity that allocation of watches must be made through a lottery. In a recent article on Worn & Wound, MB&F head of marketing communications, Charris Yadigaroglou, said he’d recently reached a conclusion. “We used to call the M.A.D. Editions a side project, alternative label, all kinds of things – but now we’ve started saying it is a second brand. We have four colleagues dedicating 95% of their time to the M.A.D. Editions, and we make a total of 4,000 to 4,500 pieces per year. So, M.A.D. Editions has in its five years grown to be 20% of our turnover,” he said.
M.A.D. Editions has up till now, including Grow Your Dreams, made two watches in a total of nine different versions. (Three if you consider M.A.D.1S as a separate watch as it has a slimmer design to the M.A.D.1, and a Swiss-made single cylinder movement made by La Joux-Perret.)
With Sun, Nature, and Water, released in three limited editions of 400 pieces each, Yinka Ilori, whose colour-centred work spans from architecture and public spaces to fashion, umbrellas, basketballs and homewares, enters new territory, compared with his universe that tends to be very public. “There’s something very private and public about a watch. Everyone sees it, but it’s you who has that connection with it,” said Mr. Ilori.
