MB&F’s LM101 has never been a simple dial watch, which makes its new collaboration with Gabriel Colliard especially compelling.
The independent enameller has brought his jungle imagery to one of the brand’s most three-dimensional horological canvases, while MB&F has adjusted the watch itself to give the enamel room to breathe.
The result is a trio of platinum limited editions where macaws, a monkey and a crocodile share space with the LM101’s suspended balance wheel and sculptural movement architecture.
At a glance
- MB&F has released three LM101 Gabriel Colliard editions in platinum, each limited to eight pieces.
- The dials use cloisonné enamel in dominant red, blue or green jungle compositions created around the LM101’s mechanical architecture.
- Each watch is priced at CHF 98,000, EUR 107,000 or USD 131,000 excluding tax.
A jungle built around the LM101
The Legacy Machine family was launched in 2011 as MB&F’s backward-looking, forward-thinking interpretation of 19th-century watchmaking codes.
The LM101 followed in 2014, condensing that idea into a 40mm case with the time display at 2 o’clock, the power reserve at 6 o’clock and a large suspended balance wheel crossing the dial from 9 to 11 o’clock.
That architecture is the point of the watch, but it also leaves very little neutral space for an artist.
For Colliard, the challenge was not just to decorate a dial, but to compose around a miniature mechanical landscape already occupying the foreground.
MB&F gave him carte blanche for the project, then reworked elements of the LM101 so the enamel could exist as more than a background.
The dial plate was reduced to accommodate multiple enamel layers, and the usual floating sub-dials were removed in favour of longer hands.
It’s a rare case where the watch doesn’t merely host the craft, but adapts to it.
Gabriel Colliard’s enamel menagerie
Colliard studied fine arts in Argentina before moving to Switzerland in 2003, where he first worked in polishing.
He later trained in enamelling in Limoges, France, then gained experience in specialist workshops and at watchmaking companies including Patek Philippe before working independently.
For the LM101 project, his early ideas drew on the richly coloured cloisonné enamel dials of the 1950s.
MB&F suggested a different route, asking whether each scene might be stronger with a dominant hue rather than a broad colour palette.
That decision shaped the trilogy.
The red edition features two macaws, the blue edition depicts a monkey, and the green edition is given over to a crocodile.
Each dial is made using cloisonné enamel, with fine gold wires bent by hand to trace the composition before enamel is added into the resulting compartments and fired repeatedly.
Restricting each composition to a prevailing colour made the work more demanding, because depth and separation have to come from subtle shifts in tone, opacity and transparency rather than dramatic contrast.
Colliard’s phrase that “the fire always has the final say” feels especially apt here, as the firing process ensures that no two examples can be perfectly identical.
At around one enamel composition per month, completing the full run of 24 watches is expected to take more than two years.
The reverse is part of the artwork
The enamel work continues on the back of the watch, where the ratchet wheel receives a cloisonné treatment that echoes the colours and motifs of the dial side.
It’s a thoughtful touch on a watch that has always treated the movement as theatre rather than hidden machinery.
The LM101 is powered by the first movement entirely conceived by MB&F’s in-house engineering team, with Kari Voutilainen overseeing the finishing specifications.
For these editions, the manual-winding calibre’s power reserve has been increased from 45 hours to 60 hours.
The movement also features a 14mm suspended balance wheel with a Straumann double hairspring.
Finishing follows historical pocket watch standards, including undulating Geneva waves, hand-polished bevels, gold chatons and countersunk blued screws.
Those details matter because they prevent the enamel from turning the LM101 into a static art object.
It remains very much a mechanical watch, only now with Colliard’s jungle scenes wrapped through its architecture on both sides.
Details & Specifications
| Brand | MB&F |
|---|---|
| Model | LM101 Gabriel Colliard |
| Editions | Monkey in blue, Macaw in red, Crocodile in green |
| Case size | 40mm |
| Case height | 16.55mm |
| Case material | Platinum |
| Dial | Cloisonné enamel jungle scene by Gabriel Colliard |
| Movement | Manual-winding MB&F in-house calibre |
| Balance | 14mm suspended balance wheel with Straumann double hairspring |
| Power reserve | 60 hours |
| Strap | Brown alligator strap |
| Clasp | Steel folding buckle with white gold cover |
| Limitation | Eight pieces per edition, 24 watches total |
| Price | CHF 98,000, EUR 107,000 or USD 131,000 excluding tax |
The LM101 Gabriel Colliard editions will speak to collectors who value traditional métiers d’art but don’t want them separated from contemporary watchmaking ideas.
They are small in number, slow to complete and visually unmistakable, yet their strongest quality may be the way the watch and the enamel work have been made to negotiate with each other.
