First of all, the B-03—which, ironically, is the first watch launched by Bogneri—is actually the third watch I designed for the brand. That's why it carries the number three.
The next question I always get is, "Why didn't you launch the watches in the order they were designed?"
The instinctive answer isn't that simple because it involves a lot of variables: time, timing, finances, family, health, and personal circumstances. That would be the logical explanation. But I think the more truthful answer is that the B-03 represents, in its own way, an evolution I've gone through, both as an individual and as a designer.
The design process is never linear. It's an endless cycle of iteration, refinement, rejection, and starting over. These stages aren't random; they're imposed by the creator's own mind, where every idea is constantly tested against a moving standard.
The B-01—long before I even knew it would be called the B-01—was born about twenty-five years ago, when I was building architectural models in my college wood-shop.
Fast forward roughly fifteen years, and I made my first trip to Switzerland to meet an engineer who was just beginning his independent watchmaking journey and has since become very well known. We met in the attic of his house, where his workshop was located, and spent hours talking about watches, movements, and possibilities.
The development cost was roughly equivalent to a thirty-year mortgage on a beach house in Los Angeles. I already knew that before I got there. But I wanted to explore the possibilities and start breathing the kind of air that has always felt lighter to me.
Knowing that a thirty-year mortgage—financially speaking—was out of the question, with or without investors, the shift became inevitable. That's when the B-02 was born, not out of preference, but out of necessity.
The challenge became: How do I create something that satisfies my need for artistic expression without requiring a seven-figure movement?
That question naturally led to another: How can I use existing movements to reinvent the wheel while giving myself the freedom to create something genuinely original?
It was a difficult proposition, but for a while I believed I had found the answer.
I ordered somewhere between forty and fifty movements—ironically sourced from Ukraine, because they were practically impossible to obtain in Switzerland—with the intention of dismantling them, studying them, and reconfiguring them into an entirely new concept.
After months of development, I was genuinely pleased with the direction of the B-02. But the whole Frankenstein approach to movement construction—even if many brands successfully build watches that way—started to feel at odds with the honesty I wanted both my designs and myself to represent.
It simply didn't sit well.
So, in short, I dragged myself back toward another thirty-year-mortgage movement...this time let's say maybe 20.
Complexity has always fascinated me, and solving difficult problems has always been second nature. Borderline foolishness, however, was something I wanted to avoid.
That's when the B-02 went back into the drawer.
In early 2022, shortly after COVID, I decided to attend Watches & Wonders—not as a vacation, even if it felt like one at times, but as a mission. I wanted to experience everything the industry had to offer, from the largest maisons to the smallest independents. The goal was to understand where the market stood, see what everyone was doing, and, most importantly, determine whether genuine innovation in watch design—as a holistic discipline—was actually taking place.
I have to admit that by the end of that week I had almost had enough of watches. Not because of the watches themselves, but because of the overwhelming sense of repetition.
I had spent days walking mile after mile, looking at what felt like the same case, the same proportions, and the same details—just with a different name on the dial, ninety-five percent of the time.
That was the moment I realized that, relatively speaking, it doesn't actually take much to think outside the box, even within the strict constraints of watchmaking.
I simply had to do what I had been doing for half my life: think like an architect... and draw a watch.
That is how the B-03 was born.
