T-Rex Blue

Availability: see it at 430 Park Avenue

• Limited Edition: 100 pieces
• Case: stainless steel
• Size: 265mm (tall) x 258mm x 178mm
• Movement: key-wound manufacture movement by L'Epée
• Power Reserve: approximately 8 days
• Dial: blue, Murano hand-blown glass
• Factory Warranty: two years

They say that art begets more art; that the act of creativity continues to generate and inspire other creations in turn. This is certainly true in the case of T-Rex, the 11th collaboration between MB&F and Switzerland’s premier clockmaker L’Épée 1839.

A minimalist clock-face of Murano glass and steel, suspended between two jointed legs that end in taloned feet — T-Rex bears slight physical resemblance to the eponymous king of beasts. The name owes more to the aspects of design that reveal themselves to the close observer, such as the confluence of power and presence conveyed in the taut limbs. The literal time capsule formed by the spherical, skeletonized body is a subliminal yet insistent allusion to the fossilized bones that contain all we know of a prehistoric era.

Two slim steel hands arch outwards from the center of the Murano glass dial, indicating the hours and minutes. Behind the dial is a 138-component movement by L’Épée 1839, crowned by a balance beating at the rate of 2.5Hz (18,000vph). The clock is wound with a key at the back of the movement for a maximum power reserve of eight days, while time-setting is accomplished at the center of the dial with the same key.

T-Rex was first introduced to audiences earlier this year as a unique piece that had been specially customized for Only Watch, the world’s most high-profile charity watch auction. Previously, MB&F’s contributions to Only Watch had been taken from existing collections. Tom & T-Rex, the MB&F creation for the eighth edition of the auction, broke with tradition by preceding the collection from which it was taken. The point of differentiation is in the name: Tom & T-Rex comes with a rider who represents the children suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, who benefit from the funds raised by Only Watch.

Through the Only Watch iteration, T-Rex has been shown to be perfectly capable of procreation. Looking back in time, its own point of genesis lies within an objet d’art from the desk of MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser, a whimsical combination of a shiny round holiday bauble mounted on metal appendages shaped like birds’ legs. When the time came to create the Co-Creation that was to become T-Rex, Büsser and designer Maximilian Maertens coalesced on this object. Somehow, this oddly thought-provoking blend of organic and inorganic elements incubated in the mind of Maertens, becoming bigger, stronger, more fantastical — more MB&F!

The legs of T-Rex are modelled directly on actual Tyrannosaurus Rex bones, using 3D scans of fossilized dinosaur skeletons as references to create verisimilitude in the final design. Alternating polished and sandblasted segments allow light to interact with the legs in such a way that make T-Rex seem agile and coiled to move, although the entire clock itself weighs approximately 2kg and its joints are fixed in place for stability.

Those with an affinity for the metaphorical will see a memento mori of sorts in T-Rex, and not just in its invocation of a long-extinct animal. T-Rex is a clock with legs — and pretty fast-looking legs at that! — saying time can run away from us all. Better act quickly, while you can. Live life, make art.

T-Rex comes in three limited editions of 100 pieces each, with Murano glass dials in green, deep blue or red.