In a traditionally lower-profile segment, the table clock is the format where brands can experiment with greater technical and expressive freedom. Mystery Box: Forget Time, a unique piece created by Fiona Krüger in collaboration with Denis Flageollet of De Bethune, is the most compelling example of 2025.

Mystery Box Forget Time by Fiona Krüger and Denis Flageollet

The work is based on Krüger’s reading of Carlo Rovelli’s texts on the non-linear nature of time. The aim was to give that idea physical form in an object that prompts the observer to rethink their relationship with time.

Externally, the piece takes the form of a closed rectangular box measuring 192mm in length. The surface is clad in movable mother-of-pearl disks crafted by Hawthorne Fine Boxes and artisan Emeline Dépail. A suspended mother-of-pearl key allows the movement to be wound, activating a ticking sound. But the case remains inert and mysterious until a hidden pusher is pressed.

The parallelepiped box covered with a marquetry of movable mother-of-pearl disks

Closed up on the mother-of-pearl disks

The deployment mechanism responds by silently extending the case to 280mm in a single, fluid gesture. The side panels open, the mother-of-pearl disks rearrange, and the watch is revealed: the large, seven-day power reserve, skeletonized FK:DF:MBT movement with floating indexes that are not attached to any traditional dial, visually reinforcing the idea of time without a fixed anchor.

View on the top while the Mystery Box is open

Drawing on the form of historic prism-shaped officers’ clocks – sometimes compared to roadside mileage markers – Flageollet has adapted the idea into a tabletop piece. Closing the case winds the motor spring; opening it releases the stored energy, with cams and eccentrics choreographing the movement of the outer discs. The mechanism appears simple, but Flageollet is quick to point out that its refinement depended on the work of a vast team of specialists and artists.

The old prism-shaped officers’ clocks

In the words of Fiona Krüger: “I wanted a mystery box because time is… mysterious. The case is the archetype of an object whose contents are unknown yet desired, much like our curiosity about the true nature of time.”

In a world dominated by the wristwatch, the tabletop clock remains the freest and most noble territory of haute horlogerie. Far from the ergonomic constraints of a case that must hug the wrist, the tabletop clock allows manufacturers to unleash their technical and artistic creativity without compromise. Giant movements that become kinetic sculptures, complications that no longer fit into 40mm, finishes contemplated from just a few centimeters away, and an architectural presence that makes time the clear focal point of a space. Mystery Box: Forget Time by Fiona Krüger and Denis Flageollet more than fulfills that promise and becomes the most remarkable tabletop timekeeper of the year.