Worn & Wound
Understanding the Poetry of Time Through Buci’s Founder and Its Newest Collection: Nouvelle
Nousseima Baraket founded Buci in 2022 with a Kickstarter campaign that funded her first collection aptly and simply named “Garde-temps” or “timepiece.” Baraket is of African and French origins, with her parents hailing from Tunisia and raising her and her siblings in the French watchmaking region of Franche-Comte, located on the northwest border with Switzerland. The name Buci comes from a street in an artistic area of Paris, a city Baraket later lived in and used as a source of motivation and inspiration to create her own watch brand (but more on that later). In addition, her North African roots also help lay the foundation for the literary-inspired watches she’d create. “My parents grew up in a farming community in an area known for its olive trees,” Baraket shares, “Neither of my parents went to school. So, for me and my siblings, education was very important. My mother would take us to the library every week and encourage us to read. As I got older, I would also go to museums to learn about authors and poets. So, poetry and literature were always very important to me.” Watches were also a big part of Baraket’s life. “Growing up in this part of France on the Swiss border, watchmaking was all around us. In my family, we began to give watches as gifts for birthdays or special occasions, and a lot of my friends went on to work at watch companies in the area.” Still, it wasn’t until Baraket was working in Paris and wanted to make a watch purchase ...
