Engraved in French on the case middle, between the lugs, MB&F's LM1 Silberstein bears a paraphrased quotation from Gustave Flaubert, "Le vrai bonheur est d'avoir sa passion pour métier".which can be roughly translated as follows: 'True happiness consists in making your passion a profession'. This phrase has particular significance for the French designer Alain Silberstein, who left behind the security of a job as an interior designer, a profession for which he had studied, to found his own watch brand. And this also applies to Maximilian Büsser, founder of MB&F, who left behind the security of his previous position as successful CEO of a famous brand to set up his own workshop for niche creations. Back in 2009, MB&F turned to Silberstein to create its very first 'Performance Art', in a series of reinterpretations of MB&F's existing 'machines' by outside artists. The result was the HM2.2 'Black Box', followed by a long list of collaborations with other creators. For this new series of performance art, Silberstein was inspired by MB&F's classic Legacy Machine No.1, imbuing it with his unique taste for the unconventional. His use of three vibrant colours (red, blue and yellow) and geometric shapes (triangle, rectangle and circle) for the hands and hour markers on the dial, translated into their three-dimensional versions of a cone, cube and sphere for the power reserve, attracts the eye as they move over the movement's more subdued movement plate. "The LM1 really struck me, because by highlighting the balance wheel - the mechanism that divides time into tiny increments - it highlights how man converts the eternity of time into something he is able to use, explains Silberstein. Since the balance wheel is the 'beating heart' of the timepiece, Silberstein was absolutely convinced that nothing should obstruct the view of the regulator on the side of the dial or prevent 'infinite time' from reaching the hour indications. He also felt that, although graceful, the two arched bridges of the original LM1 took too much attention away from the indications. It took two years of development to create the single bridge in transparent sapphire glass while adhering to incredibly strict tolerances to support the balance. Even the two crowns that control the two time zones express Silberstein's magic: their characteristic shape of a six-pointed star, created by the superposition of two triangles, also infuses the winding operation with a 'tactile pleasure'. The LM1 Silberstein is a limited edition of 12 with a red gold case, 12 in titanium and 12 in black PVD-treated titanium, also 42.5 mm in diameter.
