At 82, Vincent Calabrese remains what he has always been: watchmaking’s great creative troublemaker — “l’enquiquineur de l’horlogerie”, as he once called himself. Co-founder of the AHCI, creator of Corum’s Golden Bridge, holder of more than forty patents, the Naples-born maverick spent five decades questioning conventions from outside the industry’s traditional structures. Now, M.A.D.Editions — the accessible sister project of MB&F — has dedicated its third watch to him.
The M.A.D.3 Vincent Calabrese revives the spirit of his Baladin, the poetic “wandering jumping hour” born of a simple dissatisfaction: Calabrese disliked the abruptness of traditional jumping hours. In his complication, the hours travel slowly across the dial while the minutes run on — a display that looks puzzling for a moment, then becomes intuitive, and creates an oddly human relationship with passing time.
Translating that artisanal mechanism into series production meant rebuilding it from the ground up. The wandering hours module was completely redeveloped by the M.A.D.Editions technical team on a specially optimised La Joux-Perret G111 calibre, with a 55-hour power reserve and 4 Hz beat. The 40 mm steel case, designed by longtime MB&F collaborator Eric Giroud, keeps the M.A.D. signatures — floating lugs, layered architecture, domed sapphire on both faces — while a sapphire bombé minute ring and hidden Super-LumiNova add depth to the display. Two launch colours, a deep raspberry and a powerful blue, are drawn directly from Calabrese’s own creations.
Flip the watch over and a phrase gradually reveals itself through the spinning rotor: “Il est assez aisé de plaire aux autres, bien plus ardu d’être fier de soi” — it is fairly easy to please others, far more difficult to be proud of oneself. A discreet portrait of the man himself.
The Pink edition is reserved for MB&F’s Tribe and Friends; the Blue will be allocated by raffle. As Calabrese puts it: “Do not stay on the highway. Take your own path.”
