L’Epée 1839 x MB&F Albatross: Flight of Imagination

The spectacle begins with movement. Every hour, sixteen pairs of propellers launch into life, creating a miniature air show that brings the passing of time into three dimensions. It isn’t just motion for motion’s sake – it’s rhythm, choreography, and the kind of whimsy that makes you pause whatever you’re doing just to watch. Then comes the sound – a clear, resonant strike announcing the full hours, and a single, softer note marking the halves. It’s horology dialled up to theatre, a show that required four years of development and no fewer than 1,520 individual components.

Jules Verne’s Albatross airship in Robur the Conqueror is the obvious reference, but so too is the French author’s lifelong fascination with flying machines – balloons, rockets, fantastical contraptions that blurred the line between science and imagination. The clock carries that spirit forward – a brass, steel, and aluminium structure coated in translucent lacquer that glows in blue, red, green, champagne, or black. From some angles it looks like a model out of a museum of inventions, from others like a piece of futuristic design waiting to be animated.

Yet beneath the showmanship lies serious watchmaking. The Albatross runs on two in-house movements, both designed and manufactured by L’Epée 1839. One powers the timekeeping and the striking hours, the other devotes itself entirely to driving the propellers. Together they deliver eight days of autonomy – a long stretch, considering the amount of energy the automaton demands. The movements are finished in alternating satin and polish, a contrast that accentuates their architecture without sliding into decoration for its own sake.

Numbers matter here. The clock stands 600 mm tall and wide, with a presence that makes most coffee tables feel too small. At 17 kilos, it requires commitment just to place it. And yet it isn’t cumbersome – it feels deliberate, like a sculpture meant to own its space. Only 8 examples will exist in each of the five colors, which means a total of 40 pieces worldwide. Even within the eccentric world of MB&F collaborations, rarity adds to the aura.

This is not a clock you simply set and forget. It’s interactive – you wind one movement clockwise for the timekeeping, turn another the other way for the striking. A push here, a shift stick there, and you can decide whether the chiming or the propellers run, together or separately. Want a repeat performance? Push the on-demand button and the Albatross obliges. In a world where most clocks are passive, this one insists on being part of the conversation.

That’s ultimately the point of the Albatross. It isn’t about subtle presence or collecting another case size variation – it’s about fantasy, mechanics, and storytelling. A desk companion that refuses to sit quietly, reminding you that time, when staged right, can take flight.