Maison Alcée X MB&F: Meet Nostromo, The Alien-Inspired Clock You Build Yourself
7 min read
What if buying a mechanical clock were only the beginning? For Maison Alcée, the real luxury lies in making one. Founded in 2021 by husband-and-wife team Alcée and Benoît Montfort, the young French horological maison has built its identity around a wonderfully unusual proposition: allowing enthusiasts to step behind the curtain and experience what it means to be a watchmaker. Rather than simply owning a finely finished mechanical object, Maison Alcée invites its clients to assemble one themselves, component by component, at their own watchmaker’s bench. For the 15th anniversary of M.A.D.Gallery, Maison Alcée and MB&F have turned the art of watchmaking into an immersive experience with Nostromo, a mechanical clock that collectors assemble with their own hands.
Its debut creation, Persée, arrives as a complete horological experience comprising 233 components that can be assembled by anyone with the patience and determination to take on the challenge. The kit comes housed alongside professional watchmaking tools, some specially developed for amateurs and made with beryllium copper components to minimise the risk of scratches. There is also a beautifully illustrated 250-page book that guides the owner through every stage of the assembly, supplemented by QR codes offering additional video explanations and access to a private discussion group for support.
“Everything is presented in a highly pedagogic way, but it isn’t child’s play,” explains Alcée Montfort. “We didn’t want to make a toy for adults; this is a genuine horological project, but one that comes with all the support clients need to succeed.” And that distinction is central to Maison Alcée’s philosophy. The objective is not simply to provide a kit, but to transform the act of making into an essential part of the luxury experience. “The result is always a moment of intense pride at having created something from A to Z with one’s own hands,” Montfort adds.
Partners in Play
It was perhaps inevitable that Maison Alcée and M.A.D.Gallery would eventually collaborate. The Geneva-based gallery was among the first to believe in Maison Alcée’s concept, recognising its natural affinity with the world of mechanical art, play and community that has always defined M.A.D.Gallery. Now, as the gallery celebrates its 15th anniversary, that relationship has evolved into Nostromo, a completely new clock kit created especially for the occasion.
Designed by MB&F Creative Designer Maximilian Maertens and brought to life by Maison Alcée, Nostromo takes the fundamental architecture of Persée and gives it an entirely new personality. The result looks less like a traditional mechanical clock and more like an extraterrestrial creature that has somehow landed on the watchmaker’s bench. Its inspiration is unmistakably aligned with MB&F’s fascination with science fiction, otherworldly forms and mechanical creatures.
Like Persée, Nostromo uses a movement derived from a wristwatch calibre, enlarged for its role as a table clock. It displays the hours, minutes and seconds and incorporates an hour chime that can be switched on or off. Its movement offers an impressive 14-day power reserve and, importantly, remains accessible to enthusiasts without professional watchmaking experience. The entire clock can be assembled in approximately 10 hours, with only the regulating organ arriving pre-assembled. That makes Nostromo an intriguing balance of high horology and hands-on participation. Beneath its unusual exterior, the assembly of gears, wheels and pinions remains broadly faithful to the Persée experience. But visually, almost everything has changed.
A Mechanical Creature Comes to Life
Maertens has effectively turned the original clock on its side, adding three organic-looking feet that give Nostromo its distinctive creature-like stance. Once assembled, the clock can be rotated on these feet, introducing another playful dimension to the object. The time display itself has been angled upwards, making it easier to read while reinforcing the impression that the clock is looking back at its owner.
For Maertens, however, creating this form while preserving Maison Alcée’s accessible assembly experience presented a genuine design challenge. “It was no easy feat to modify the clock, since it needed to remain as user friendly as possible,” he explains. Designing something for professional watchmakers would have been considerably simpler, but Nostromo had to remain approachable to enthusiasts who may never have assembled a mechanical movement before.
The creature’s visual language also draws from Maertens’ longstanding fascination with science fiction and the work of H.R. Giger. “I am a huge H.R. Giger fan, and I wanted to bring a little bit of the alien world into play,” he says. Even its name is a deliberate nod to cinematic science fiction: Nostromo is the name of the spaceship in the first Alien film.
The specifications underline just how substantial this little mechanical creature is. Weighing 760 grams and measuring 160 mm in length, 135 mm in width and 123 mm in height, Nostromo combines stainless steel, brass and German silver. Its dial has undergone one of the most significant transformations from Persée. Where the original featured a continuous ring, Nostromo’s dial is divided into individual sections, finished in the signature peacock blue associated with M.A.D.Gallery. The colour echoes the decorative wall orb found in MB&F retail spaces. To know more about M. A. D. Gallery click here.
The separated dial does more than introduce a new aesthetic. It opens up the clock visually, allowing greater portions of the movement and its intricate gear train to be seen. The hands have also been redesigned in black, providing stronger contrast against the movement and making the display more legible.
Watchmaking, One Component at a Time
There is something particularly compelling about Nostromo because its appeal extends beyond its unusual appearance. At its heart, it embodies a very traditional idea of watchmaking: that mechanical objects are best understood when you take them apart, put them together and learn how each component interacts with the next.
That philosophy is at the heart of Maison Alcée. Its contemporary interpretation of luxury is based on the mindful act of creation taking time, learning through one's own hands and ultimately producing an object whose emotional value extends beyond anything that could simply be purchased. It is a philosophy that earned the maison significant recognition in 2023, when Maison Alcée received the Audacity Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).
Nostromo takes that philosophy a step further by combining it with MB&F’s unmistakable creative universe. The result is not merely a clock designed to sit on a desk. It is an invitation to participate in the making of a piece of mechanical art, with the added satisfaction of eventually watching it come alive after roughly 10 hours of careful assembly.
Each Nostromo will be accompanied by the same beautifully produced 250-page book that forms an essential part of the Maison Alcée experience. Alongside detailed instructions, the book includes QR codes leading to additional video content created specifically to explain the particularities of Nostromo and its assembly.
Only 50 examples of Nostromo will be produced, making the collaboration a particularly rare expression of the shared philosophy between Maison Alcée and M.A.D.Gallery: that mechanical art should not necessarily be something collectors simply observe, but something they can touch, understand and experience.
15 Years of M.A.D.Gallery
The launch of Nostromo also forms part of a much larger celebration. In 2026, M.A.D.Gallery marks 15 years since its beginnings in Geneva. What started as an unconventional space dedicated to mechanical art has since expanded to Dubai, while the more compact MB&F Labs have brought the concept to Taipei, Singapore, Paris, Beverly Hills and Menlo Park in Silicon Valley. More recently, New York joined the family with the opening of an MB&F Lounge in Manhattan.
To mark the anniversary, M.A.D.Gallery has invited several of the mechanical artists who have shaped its story to create special limited editions. Frank Buchwald and Martin Smith of Laikingland have already joined the celebrations, with Maison Alcée’s Nostromo now adding a distinctly horological dimension to the anniversary programme.
More limited-edition mechanical art creations will follow throughout 2026, giving collectors another reason to explore the evolving world of M.A.D.Gallery. And perhaps that is what makes Nostromo particularly fitting for the occasion. Fifteen years of M.A.D.Gallery have been built around the idea that mechanical art can inspire curiosity, conversation and play. Maison Alcée brings that philosophy to the watchmaker’s bench, while MB&F supplies the imagination. The result is a clock that does something surprisingly rare in luxury: it asks its owner not simply to admire it, but to make it.
Price: 14,25,222 Approx
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FAQ
1. What is the Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo clock?
The Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo is a limited-edition mechanical table clock created to celebrate the 15th anniversary of M.A.D.Gallery. Designed by MB&F Creative Designer Maximilian Maertens and crafted by Maison Alcée, it takes the form of an alien-inspired mechanical creature and is designed to be assembled by the owner.
