MB&F has teamed up with French jewelry designer Emmanuel Tarpin to create two limited editions of its Legacy Machine Flying T.
The Legacy Machine Flying T has a unique architecture with its high-domed crystal acting like a clear chef’s cloche with a three-dimensional dial served up below.
Working with Emmanuel Tarpin is part of a wider effort to collaborate with experts who can use the Flying T as a platform they can turn into their own unique artworks.
“We are not jewelers, we are watchmakers,” says MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser. “We would put diamonds on our timepieces, but it was really the bare minimum. So, I started to see jewelers, great jewelers, to ask them if they would like to put their artistry and jewelry into our Flying T – much like giving them a blank canvas to paint.”
Bulgari was the first jeweler to take up the offer of creating a Flying T, and now Mr Tarpin has taken up the challenge in two models.
The first, called Ice, has asymmetrical diamond-set stalagmites that encroach on the sapphire crystal dome and the movement in the way that a lake freezes from its banks towards the centre.
The second, named Blizzard, is more like a snow globe of brilliant cut diamonds circling the lapis lazuli dial.
Both white told watches use MB&F’s FlyingT three dimensional automatic movement with a flying 60-second tourbillon and power reserve of 100 hours.
Only eight are being made of each.