California is now home to not one, but two MB&F Labs following an opening with Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley.
It joins a Lab run in partnership with Westime on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
Stephen Silver secured the Lab thanks to its investment in The Villa Menlo Park, a $100 million mega-emporium combining retail, event and hospitality for independents watchmakers that has been opening in phases over the past year.
With a total square footage of 35,000 square feet, it is one of the largest projects by a retail jeweler in the United States and comes at a time when demand for rare and radical mechanical watches is running hot among the billionaire tech titans of Silicon Valley.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, once a poster child for zero budget dress-down conformity, has been seen wearing exceptional pieces including a Greubel Forsey Hand Made One and several by F.P. Journe.
Max Büsser, founder and CEO of MB&F, says he is seeing a sea change in what Silicon Valley clients want.
“What I’m noticing, which I’ve never seen elsewhere, is people whose first nice watch or first independent watch is a mind-blowing MB&F,” Mr Büsser told GQ’s Cam Wolf earlier this month. “We’re used to our customers going up the food chain: They’ve started with Tag Heuer and then went to Rolex, Omega, blah blah blah, and then they come to us.”
Jared Silver, the second generation CEO of Stephen Silver, said in the same GQ interview that he had once sold a $400,000 MB&F Space Pirate to a tech entrepreneur as his first watch. “He didn’t buy watches, didn’t care about watches, but he was blown away by the piece,” Mr Silver said.
Mr Silver and Mr Büsser cut the ribbon on the new MB&F Lab this week.
“MB&F LAB Silicon Valley boutique invites visitors to experience one of the most extensive collections of avant-garde MB&F horological creations to be found in North America, including complex timepieces, conceptual desk clocks, and mechanical sculptures – in one of the world’s only MB&F LABs,” the company says.
There are now five MB&F Labs in the world, two of them in California, and two M.A.D. Galleries. Both concepts present MB&F’s watches alongside its horological sculptures and other art. They are a tier above MB&F retailers, and tend to have access to the rarest and most desirable pieces.