Peter Speake, first on the rope
In 2005–2006, the MB&F project was almost finalized. Max Büsser had conceived the concept of the first watch, designer Eric Giroud gave it its definitive lines. On the movement side, it was constructor Laurent Besse who designed the caliber. Watchmaker Peter Speake was tasked with bringing it to life. The man had launched, barely five years earlier, his own brand under his name (which is in fact a family alias). A rising star of fine independent watchmaking, he emerged at the same time as other future great names, such as Greubel Forsey (2004), Hautlence (2004) or Rudis Sylva (2006). Like Max Büsser, Peter Speake is fiercely independent, deeply human and entrepreneurial, hence his unwavering support for this small, somewhat crazy project which, at the time, was launched under the name MB&F. The rest is history. Peter Speake has since sold his brand and is relaunching a new project, PS Horology, which should open in the coming weeks.
Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, the traveling companion
He is the man who founded the most prominent technical bureau of the past 20 years, Agenhor, for Atelier Genevois d’Horlogerie. The brilliant Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, father of an incalculable number of movements for the greatest names in watchmaking, is no stranger to the MB&F galaxy: he worked on the Opus pieces for Harry Winston, the last brand for which a certain Max Büsser worked before launching under his own name. The two men therefore know each other extremely well, and their collaboration gave rise to two MB&F projects, the HM2 and HM3. Jean-Marc Wiederrecht is now gradually retiring, having previously entrusted the keys of Agenhor to his two sons.
Brette, future star
The HM6 marks a break. The movement is complex, a kind of pentapod made entirely of curves, with two globes for the hours and minutes, two others for the winding turbines, and a final one for the tourbillon. The components are highly off centered. As always, design takes precedence, and the watchmakers had to adapt. One became known to the wider public: Simon Brette. His eponymous brand is also one of the most sought after in independent high watchmaking. MB&F thus contributed to bringing these two talents into the spotlight, who now sail under their own colors.
Jean-François Mojon, the sorcerer
Founder of Chronode, he has served the greatest institutional brands. Jean-François Mojon is one of the pillars of MB&F. He is a former Swatch Group employee, SMH at the time, and former IWC. Like Max Büsser, he quickly took the path of independence, hence his natural affinity with the founder of MB&F. Jean-François Mojon worked on the first Horological Machines, HM, as well as the very first Legacy Machine, LM, an essential bestseller of MB&F, both in terms of sales volumes and as a gateway into the MB&F universe. Discreet, affable, a machine of ideas but also of concrete and pragmatic solutions to implement them, a quality whose absence has proven fatal to many brilliant concepts, Jean-François Mojon still presides over Chronode as well as the developments of the brand Cyrus.
Stephen McDonnell, the man in the shadows
Max Büsser often speaks of his perpetual calendar, the Legacy Machine Perpetual, as the project that gave him the most cold sweats throughout his entire career, rivaled only by the Sequential chronograph. So what do these two titanic projects have in common? The watchmaker Stephen McDonnell. Based in Belfast, Stephen McDonnell spent 14 years in Switzerland, where he trained at WOSTEP, before returning to his native land where he has been operating from his independent workshop ever since. Yet he remains absolutely discreet. Unlike his peers mentioned previously, the 51 year old man keeps a clear distance from any media spotlight, never wears a watch, and focuses on the creation of his own movements, about which, practically speaking, almost nothing is known. Twenty years after Peter Speake Marin, Stephen McDonnell closes the circle of Her Majesty’s watchmakers in the service of MB&F.
