Marco Tedeschi MT1.1 Le Tourbillon 7 Jours — The Kross Studio Rebrand and the Crown-Less, Lugless Flying Tourbillon

Description

Behind the headline "Kross Studio rebrands to Marco Tedeschi" is the bigger story: a small Swiss high-end house is repositioning around its founder-watchmaker's name, and is using the launch of the MT1.1 Le Tourbillon 7 Jours as the inaugural piece under the new identity. The rebrand is unusual — most independents launch with the founder's name from day one — and signals a deliberate shift toward a more horology-first identity, with the dramatic art-piece collaborations of the Kross Studio era moving to the background.

The MT1.1 itself is a deepened version of the MT1 that previewed the brand's direction back in 2024. The architecture is preserved — flying tourbillon at 6 o'clock, 7-day power reserve, openworked dial driven by the movement's own structure — and the case continues to be a crown-less, lugless 44 mm round form. What changes is execution: refined finishing, new metal options including tantalum, and a clearer brand identity around Marco Tedeschi's name and signature.

For a collector tracking emerging Swiss high-end independents, this is one of the most interesting "phase two" launches of 2026. The price band is genuinely competitive against the obvious comparables in the flying-tourbillon-with-7-day-reserve category, and the rebrand provides a clean starting point for what looks like a long-horizon catalogue.

Design

The MT1.1 case is round, 44 mm in diameter, deliberately lugless — the strap attachment runs through the case profile rather than through projecting horns — and crown-less at 3 o'clock, with winding and time-setting handled through a dedicated mechanism on the caseback. Surfaces alternate satin brushing on the case middle with mirror-polished bezels and bezel transitions, giving a strong contrast that emphasises the architectural form. The look is restrained but unmistakably high-end.

The dial is, in effect, the movement. The MT 7010 IRM is exposed: bridges and mainplate visible, the flying tourbillon turning openly at 6 o'clock, and a power-reserve indicator at 12 o'clock. The mainplate and bridges are crafted from lead-free nickel silver and finished with a deep dark ruthenium PVD treatment, which gives the architecture a uniformly dark backdrop against which the polished bevels, satin-brushed surfaces, and circular finishing read with notable depth. Four case-material options are offered: titanium, black DLC titanium, tantalum, and 18 K 5N pink gold — each keeping the identical movement and dial-side architecture intact.

Specifications

Reference / Variants: MT1.1 in Titanium, Black DLC Titanium, Tantalum, 18 K 5N Pink Gold
Case: 44 mm round, lugless, no crown at 3 o'clock; satin-brushed and polished surfaces; sapphire crystal front and back
Dial: Fully openworked — exposed movement architecture; flying tourbillon at 6, power-reserve indicator at 12
Movement: Manufacture Calibre MT 7010 IRM; manual-wind
Tourbillon: Flying tourbillon at 6 o'clock
Power reserve: 7 days (168 hours), in-line dual-barrel architecture
Plate / bridges: Lead-free nickel silver, dark ruthenium PVD treatment; satin-brushed surfaces, polished bevels, circular finishing
Functions: Hours, minutes, flying tourbillon, 7-day power-reserve indicator
Prices (CHF, ex tax): Titanium — 69,900 · Black DLC Titanium — 74,900 · Tantalum — 79,900 · 18 K 5N Pink Gold — 89,900

What's Exciting

Two stories make this watch worth paying attention to. First, the rebrand. Going from "Kross Studio" — a name that was always part-art-house, part-collaboration project — to a watchmaker's personal name signals that Marco Tedeschi (whose CV includes complications work at Roger Dubuis and Hublot before Kross Studio) wants the brand to be evaluated on horological grounds, not on celebrity-IP partnerships. That is a confident move for a young brand, and it usually correlates with a long-term catalogue strategy.

Second, the MT 7010 IRM itself. A flying tourbillon with a 7-day power reserve is a non-trivial piece of engineering — most flying tourbillons live in the 50–80 hour range — and putting one inside a 44 mm crown-less, lugless case demands a winding/setting mechanism that does not compromise either the movement layout or wearability. The result is genuinely fresh in a category that often defaults to safe round designs. Pricing is also notable: titanium at CHF 69,900 sits well under the typical Greubel Forsey / Akrivia / De Bethune reference points for comparable complications, which gives the MT1.1 a real value angle within Swiss high-end indie watchmaking.

History

Kross Studio was founded in 2020 in Nyon, Switzerland, originally pitched as a high-end art and object house collaborating with major IPs (Bugatti, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter) on extreme-spec one-off pieces and limited collector sets. The studio gradually moved into pure horological pieces, with the original MT1 Chronomètre Tourbillon 7 Jours — named for the watchmaker Marco Tedeschi — serving as the first reference clearly anchored in classical complication design rather than in licensed IP.

The April 2026 rebrand to "Marco Tedeschi" is the formal acknowledgement of where the studio's identity already sat: on Tedeschi's complication work. The MT1.1 inherits the MT-prefix nomenclature for catalogue continuity but starts a new chapter under the founder's name. The art-and-object collector pieces from the Kross Studio era continue to exist and remain available for select clients, but the brand-going-forward is positioned as a serious independent watchmaker — and the MT1.1 is the first reference to define that new chapter.