Waking The Force — The New Legacy Machine Perpetual From MB&F

A new watch from MB&F is always a big deal. There’s a teaser campaign, articles start cropping up to revisit the previous watches, people speculate rampantly — the closest thing I’ve seen to it recently was when the new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released and the Internet pretty much exploded.

Now I’m not saying that a product launch by an independent luxury watch brand could cause as much widespread geek hysteria as a new chapter of a multi-billion-dollar cinematic space epic franchise. Of course I’m not saying that. But if there was an equivalent to the Star Wars phenomenon in the watch industry, MB&F would probably be it. (We don’t have to think about Episodes 1–3. Now or ever.)

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The force is really awakening with MB&F’s new Legacy Machine Perpetual. It’s a perpetual calendar, you see.

If there’s one practical complication that really keeps us aware of the complex choreography of the cosmos, it’s got to be the perpetual calendar. Yes, there are wrist-worn planetaria and other esoteric astronomical complications such as the equation of time, but you’ll notice I said “practical complication”. Key word being “practical”.

So this is the first time I’ve ever used the word “practical” in any of my articles about MB&F. There’ve been a few.

This is also the first time that MB&F have incorporated one of the traditional high complications within their watches, so we’re looking at a bunch of firsts right here. Nomenclature is super important; I know they’ve had tourbillons and power-reserve indications and moonphase displays and simple date indications.

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The perpetual calendar, however, is one of the big guns. The perpetual calendar is one of those guys who gets a special coloured lightsaber, like purple or something, the way Mace Windu did. Interesting fact: Samuel L Jackson has gone on record stating that his lightsaber is engraved at the hilt with the words “Bad Motherfucker”. I want to see someone do something like that with his Legacy Machine Perpetual. Or her Legacy Machine Perpetual, actually, because I tried it on and it looked pretty great, even with my 13.5cm (5.3in) wrist.

Who’s behind the MB&F perpetual calendar? A watchmaker called Stephen McDonnell that — according to Max Büsser — will very rapidly become known as a horological genius. Also according to Max, that’s the first time he’s called someone a genius. The firsts are stacking up fast and furious with this watch.

The perpetual calendar utilises an interesting new system of advancing the date, which we’ll take the time to explore in a later article. For now, just enjoy the watch. The thinking can come later. The force may be awake in this watch, but for now we still need quite a lot of coffee to keep up with it.

 

 

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