William Massena spent decades collecting watches and running a collectors’ forum before founding Massena LAB in 2018, to take his own ideas to independent watchmakers.
A collector first
William Massena has collected watches from an early age. He has worked as a consultant and an auctioneer, ran stores in Miami and New York City, and became chief operating officer of Antiquorum in Geneva.
In 1995 he found TimeZone, a collectors’ forum then in its earliest days. He became a moderator and, from 2005 to 2020, its managing director. The forum led to his first watches. In 2014 he began working with Richard and Maria Habring on the TimeZone 20th Anniversary Habring² Chrono COS. Work on a second piece, the Habring² x TimeZone Jumping Seconds, began in 2016.
In 2018 he founded Massena LAB, which the brand calls a creative outlet for his work with independent watchmakers.
Ideas for other makers
Massena LAB creates, designs and develops watches with established makers. It proposes ideas that sit outside a maker’s own collection, often drawing on style from the past. The brand says LAB stands for laboratory and label, and also for collaboration.
The first collaboration under the new name was the ERWIN LAB01 with Habring², a three-hand watch in a 38.5mm bronze case with a black sector dial. Its jumping seconds can be watched from both sides of the watch. The ERWIN LAB03 followed with a bronze, engine-turned dial by J.N. Shapiro and chronometer certification from the Horological Society of New York.
The watches
From 2020 the brand also launched models under its own label. The Uni-Racer took three years to make. It reinterprets a mid-century chronograph in a 39mm steel case, with a large 30-minute counter the brand calls the Big Eye.
The Magraph of 2022 was its first watch with Raúl Pagès, and his first with another brand. It introduced the first Massena LAB proprietary movement, the hand-wound M660, designed by Pagès, beneath a dial inspired by 1930s Bauhaus design. Pagès signs these calibres with a small tortoise, stamped under the balance wheel. The partnership continued with the Absinthe and the Noctograph.
The 2024 Maxigraph, made with Albishorn, imagines how a regatta chronograph might have looked in the 1930s. It takes its cue from Le Bol d’Or, a race first held on Lake Geneva in 1939. Its patented ten-minute retrograde regatta timer stops when the countdown ends, while the chronograph runs on.
A meeting at a collectors’ event in Geneva led to the 2023 Chronograph Monopoussoir with Sylvain Pinaud, a handmade monopusher chronograph limited to ten pieces. Massena remembers the moment plainly: “When I held Sylvain's chronograph, it was pure magic.” In 2024 the watch won the Chronograph Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, shared between Pinaud and Massena.
The company today
Its other partners include Vianney Halter, H. Moser & Cie., Louis Erard and UNIMATIC, as well as Angelus, with whom it re-edited a 1960s doctor’s chronograph. The business is Vesper & Co. International LTD, trading as Massena LAB and incorporated in New York State.
Its stated aim is a community of informed enthusiasts with a passion for original watches from independent makers. In 2025 it marked the first 30 years of TimeZone with the TZ30, made with Pagès and limited to 30 pieces. The forum where Massena began has its own watch from his label.
At a glance
- Founded: 2018
- Founder: William Massena
- Based in: New York State, United States (company incorporated there)
- Known for: collaborations with independent watchmakers; the Uni-Racer; the M660 movement with Raúl Pagès; the 2024 GPHG Chronograph Watch Prize with Sylvain Pinaud
- Independent: yes
Sources: Massena LAB’s own website (About, Massena LAB collection, Archive, terms of service, and product pages for the ERWIN LAB01 and LAB03, Uni-Racer, Magraph, Absinthe, Noctograph, Maxigraph, Chronograph Monopoussoir, Angelus Chronographe Médical and TZ30).