The Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo Is a 222-Piece Clock You Build Yourself
Most luxury clocks arrive ready to tell time, but the Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo expects you to build yours first. Limited to just 50 examples, the extraterrestrial-looking mechanical clock arrives as a 222-component kit designed to be assembled by its owner at home.
Maison Alcée and MB&F estimate the process takes roughly 10 hours, with the regulating organ being one of the few elements that comes preassembled. The privilege of becoming your own watchmaker costs CHF 12,000 before VAT.
Created to celebrate the 15th anniversary of MB&F’s M.A.D.Gallery, Nostromo combines Maison Alcée’s unusual build-it-yourself approach to high horology with the mechanical-art aesthetic that has long made MB&F creations instantly recognizable. The finished clock might be the object on display, but with Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo, assembling it is a major part of what you are actually buying.
The Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo Arrives in 222 Pieces
Forget peeling plastic off a new purchase and putting it on the shelf. Nostromo arrives inside a crafted wooden presentation box containing 222 components, along with the tools and instructional material needed to transform those parts into a working mechanical clock.
Among them are brass gears and structural components made from stainless steel and nickel silver. Once completed, the clock measures approximately 160mm wide, 123mm high and 135mm deep, with a reported weight of around 760 grams. That makes Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo less like purchasing a conventional luxury desk clock and more like enrolling in a miniature watchmaking workshop that happens to come with a rather impressive souvenir.
Owners Spend About 10 Hours Building the Clock
Maison Alcée was founded around a fairly unconventional idea: let the customer participate in the watchmaking process rather than simply admire the end result. Its clock kits are designed so both experienced enthusiasts and complete novices can assemble them. For Nostromo, only the regulating organ arrives preassembled, while the gears, wheels, pinions, dial components and surrounding architecture become part of the owner’s project.
MB&F says completing the movement should take approximately 10 hours. At CHF 12,000, Nostromo is therefore one of the rarer luxury objects where paying full price still leaves you with roughly a full workday of assembly ahead of you.
That effort is precisely the point. Instead of hiding the mechanics behind the finished product, the Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo makes understanding those mechanics part of the ownership experience.
A 14-Day Power Reserve Keeps Nostromo Running
The build-it-yourself premise could easily make Nostromo sound like an elaborate novelty kit, but mechanically it is anything but. Once assembled, the clock displays hours, minutes and seconds and includes a switchable hourly chime. Its movement also delivers an impressive 14-day power reserve, meaning owners will not have to immediately start winding their creation once the assembly tools are finally put away.
The architecture takes inspiration from mechanical wristwatch construction but enlarges the concept into a format suitable for a desk clock. Maison Alcée has not simplified the idea of mechanical horology into a toy. Instead, it has designed legitimate mechanical clockmaking to be approachable enough for the person buying it to participate in the process.
The Design Looks Like Something From ‘Alien’ for a Reason
Even before learning about the 222 pieces inside the box, Nostromo is difficult to mistake for an ordinary desk clock. MB&F creative designer Maximilian Maertens reworked the architecture of Maison Alcée’s existing Persée clock, rotating the overall structure sideways and supporting it with three organic-looking feet. The clock can rotate on those supports, while its time display is positioned at an upward angle to make it easier to read when sitting on a desk or table.
If the whole thing looks vaguely extraterrestrial, that is intentional. Maertens is an admirer of artist H.R. Giger, whose biomechanical visual language famously helped define the look of the original Alien. The Nostromo name itself references the commercial spacecraft aboard which the 1979 film’s crew encounters the creature. It is a fitting reference for a clock that appears as though it might start walking across the desk when nobody is looking.
Maison Alcée Turns the Customer Into the Watchmaker
Founded in 2021 by husband-and-wife team Alcée and Benoît Montfort, Maison Alcée has built its identity around bringing customers closer to traditional mechanical craftsmanship. Rather than delivering a completed clock, the French company provides the components, specialized tools and guidance necessary for owners to experience some of the process themselves. The approach has already received significant recognition within watchmaking, with Maison Alcée winning the Audacity Prize at the 2023 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, one of the industry’s most prestigious annual awards.
MB&F’s involvement also has history behind it. Its M.A.D.Gallery was an early supporter of Maison Alcée, making Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo feel more like the next step in an existing relationship than a collaboration assembled simply for branding purposes. Both companies also share an interest in turning mechanical objects into something closer to kinetic art. Nostromo simply asks the customer to help finish the artwork.
Only 50 Nostromo Clocks Will Be Made
Maison Alcée and MB&F will produce just 50 examples of The Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo. The Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo is officially priced at CHF 12,000 excluding VAT, with MB&F currently listing an estimated delivery window of October through November 2026.
The price places Nostromo firmly in luxury territory, but its proposition is noticeably different from the usual combination of materials, craftsmanship and scarcity. Most expensive objects are designed to remove effort from ownership. Nostromo deliberately adds some back.
For CHF 12,000, Maison Alcée and MB&F could simply deliver another beautifully finished mechanical clock. Instead, they make the owner partially responsible for creating it. Ten hours, 222 components and presumably a few moments of questioning your own dexterity later, the object sitting on the desk is no longer merely something you bought — the Maison Alcée x MB&F Nostromo is something you built.
