M.A.D.Editions gives Vincent Calabrese’s Baladin idea a new stage with the M.A.D.3

M.A.D.Editions has always worked best when it treats mechanics as something playful rather than intimidating.

With the M.A.D.3 Vincent Calabrese, that idea turns toward one of independent watchmaking’s most idiosyncratic minds, revisiting the Baladin concept through a watch that sits far below the price level usually associated with this kind of mechanical storytelling.

The result is a 40 mm steel watch built around a progressive jumping-hour display, priced at CHF 2,900 plus VAT and split across two launch colours with different access routes.

At a glance

Calabrese’s Baladin idea returns in a new form

Vincent Calabrese is 82, but his watchmaking still feels closer to provocation than nostalgia.

Across more than five decades, he has developed more than 40 patents and helped shape the language of independent horology, from wandering-hour systems to tourbillons and the Golden Bridge movement created for Corum.

He also co-founded the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants with Svend Andersen in 1985, a key moment in the rise of modern independent watchmaking.

The Baladin concept came from Calabrese’s unease with the hard snap of a conventional jumping-hour display.

Rather than letting the hour change instantly, the indication travels progressively across the dial as the minutes continue their own path, making the transition from one hour to the next visibly unfold.

The M.A.D.3 doesn’t attempt to replicate an earlier Baladin watch as a historical exercise.

It keeps the underlying gesture and rebuilds it for the M.A.D.Editions platform, where mechanical character has to meet repeatable production and everyday reliability.

A La Joux-Perret base with a purpose-built module

Inside the M.A.D.3 is a Swiss-made Manufacture La Joux-Perret G111 automatic calibre, chosen as the foundation for a newly developed module.

That module combines a bi-directional jumping-hour display with trailing minutes, preserving the smooth visual transition that defines the Baladin idea.

The movement operates at 4 Hz, or 28,800 vibrations per hour, and offers a 55-hour power reserve.

It measures 25.6 mm in diameter and 4.45 mm in height, with 24 jewels.

The redevelopment work focused on energy transmission, amplitude control, tighter tolerances and longer-term stability, all important for a display that needs to look fluid rather than merely clever.

Turn the watch over and the rotor adds a more personal detail.

As it moves, openings reveal the phrase “Il est assez aisé de plaire aux autres, bien plus ardu d’être fier de soi”, translated as “It is fairly easy to please others, far more difficult to be proud of oneself.”

Eric Giroud’s layered steel case

The case was designed by Eric Giroud, whose work with MB&F and M.A.D.Editions has often relied on depth, transparency and a sense of mechanical theatre.

Here, the 316L stainless steel case measures 40 mm across and 12.7 mm thick, with a compact 43.7 mm lug-to-lug measurement.

Floating lugs, domed sapphire crystals and stacked dial architecture give the watch much of its visual identity.

The upper sapphire crystal has anti-reflective coating on both sides, while the caseback crystal receives anti-reflective treatment on its inner side.

The display uses a bombé sapphire minute ring and transparent components, with Super-LumiNova integrated into the construction rather than simply printed as an afterthought.

Water resistance is rated to 3 ATM, enough for daily caution rather than aquatic ambition.

Blue and Pink editions with different access routes

The M.A.D.3 Vincent Calabrese launches in two colours, each tied to a different route to ownership.

The Blue edition uses a deep blue tone and will be offered through the M.A.D.Editions raffle system, opening on September 1 and closing on September 7.

The Pink edition uses a sunny raspberry tone and is reserved for M.A.D.Editions Tribe Members and Friends.

Both colours are connected to shades found in Calabrese’s own work, which gives the watch a warmer link to its namesake than a simple signature on the dial would have done.

The Blue edition is paired with a leather strap and stainless-steel folding buckle, and the Pink edition follows the same general configuration.

Details & Specifications

The appeal of the M.A.D.3 is that it doesn’t flatten Calabrese’s idea into a novelty display.

It gives a poetic complication a more accessible format, while keeping enough mechanical texture and personality to make it feel like a genuine meeting between two independent watchmaking worlds.