F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition in-depth feature
In 2015, F.P.Journe established the ‘Young Talent Competition’. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, this annual competition invites highly gifted individuals from around the globe to submit a ‘watch, clock or technical construction’ for evaluation by a jury of experts’. Angus Davies reflects on the work of some past winners and the legacy this competition has left for future generations of watchmakers and horological obsessives alike.
Image – F.P.Journe speaking at SIHH 2018 at the Young Talent Competition
Watchmaking talent
While watching television on a Saturday evening, I’m often reminded that ‘talent’ is a word that’s frequently used but seldom justified. However, in a landscape where mediocrity abounds, François-Paul Journe stands out from the crowd. A renowned figure within the world of Haute Horlogerie, Journe has repeatedly seduced the cognoscenti with his exceptional expressions of mechanical art.
F.P.Journe – the reluctant student
Born in 1957, in the sun-kissed city of Marseilles, François-Paul Journe did not enjoy his time at school. A rebel without a cause, the young man was ultimately expelled. For many individuals this would have spelt disaster, thwarting any long-held ambitions. Thankfully, François-Paul’s uncle, Michel Journe, a master restorer of antique clocks, recognised the young man possessed a latent ability that just needed to be developed. As a result, François-Paul moved to Paris where, under the tutelage of his uncle, his talents were nurtured.
F.P.Journe – a rare talent
Throughout his career, François-Paul has continuously appraised what has gone before and challenged the status quo by inventing and making his own ingenious mechanisms and movements. This penchant for mechanical innovation is complemented with a remarkable sensitivity for design. Indeed, Journe’s appreciation for lines, textures, proportions and materials, coupled with his mechanical virtuosity, has led to him enjoying extraordinary success.
F.P.Journe – giving something back
Journe clearly has an affinity for traditional watchmaking, its history and those individuals who seek to create expressions of Haute Horlogerie. While his vocation has brought him success, both professional and financial, watchmaking has been good to Journe, giving him a purpose from a young age. It is perhaps for this reason that in 2015, he sought to give something back to the industry, announcing the inaugural F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition in collaboration with AHCI.
Image – F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2023 – prize awarded to Alexandre Hazemann
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition – discovering and supporting talented watchmakers
From the outset, François-Paul wanted the competition to provide a platform for the most talented watchmakers and ‘support them in their route to independence by identifying their achievements and putting them under the spotlight’.
In an industry that has embraced cutting-edge technology, Journe continues to place much importance on watchmaking history along with preserving the skills and know-how necessary to create expressions of Haute Horlogerie. From the outset, he sought to create a jury composed of ‘key personalities from the international horological scene’. These experts have included Philippe Dufour, Andreas Strehler, Giulio Papi, Marc Jenni, Michael Tay and Elizabeth Doerr.
Image – F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition jury 2025
Submitted entries to the competition are judged based on four stated criteria, namely, ‘the most original concept’, the ‘highest technical complexity’, the ‘most beautiful design and elaborate finishing’ and the ‘quality of craftsmanship’. Candidates must be between 18 and 30 years of age at the time of registration and the competition is even open to self-taught applicants. Competition winners receive grants to fund the purchase of watchmaking tools, effectively a helping hand as they embark on their journey towards independence.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the past winners of the F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2018 – Rémy Cools
Cools’ creation, ‘Mechanica Tempus Pendulette Tourbillon’ featured an off-centre dial, the gravity-defying high-complication and an ‘inclining movement system’. The young watchmaker, just 20 years of age at the time of the competition, employed traditional techniques such as milling. Moreover, he endued his creation with an array of refined finishes, including chamfering and block polishing.
Perusing Rémy Cools’ website, he talks about developing an obsession with watchmaking when he was a mere 11 years of age. His passion led to him ‘buying vintage timepieces in flea markets’, reading extensively about watchmaking and becoming influenced by ’18th and 19th century French watchmaker legends’. He attended, and ultimately graduated from, Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau.
Image – Mechanica Tempus Pendulette Tourbillon
No doubt buoyed by the success of winning the F.P.Journe Young Talent, Cools took the bold decision to establish his own workshop, becoming an independent watchmaker at 22 years of age. Clearly, he has a fondness for the tourbillon, subsequently releasing the ‘Tourbillon Atelier’, This 39 mm timepiece, housed in platinum, celebrates Breguet’s invention and embraces uncluttered, symmetrical design. Cools also points out that within his atelier, ‘watches are meticulously crafted from start to finish’. In 2024, the excellence of Cools’ work was recognised with the award of the GPHG ‘Horological Revelation Prize’.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2018 – Théo Auffret
Like Cools, Théo Auffret, a fellow winner of the Young Talent Competition 2018, was a graduate of the Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau. He was trained in traditional watchmaking with a strong emphasis on restoring historical timepieces, a background that led to him using traditional methods for his winning creation, the ‘Tourbillon à Paris’.
Auffret’s prize-winning watch featured a regulator-type display with the hours shown on a subdial in the south-easterly region of the display. When creating his watch, Théo sought to make it simple to poise and regulate. Furthermore, he wanted to create a ‘solid’ watch, ideally suited to daily wear.
The ‘Tourbillon à Paris’ revealed that Auffret was not afraid to work with challenging materials, especially when this proffered excellence. For instance, he chose to make the mainplate and bridges from German silver (maillechort), a material that is notably hard and challenging to work with but obviates the need for plating while usefully sidestepping corrosion. He endowed the bridges and mainplate with a traditional charcoal finish.
In 2020, Théo Auffret established his own business, unveiling a refined Tourbillon à Paris, offered for sale on a souscription basis. At the time, I interviewed him about his watch, keen to learn more about his fledgling business. Since going it alone, Auffret has relocated to larger premises in the heart of Paris and has collaborated with Guillaume Laidet, creating the futuristic and accessible SpaceOne watches.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2020 – Norifumi Seki
Norifumi Seki was just 23 years of age when he won the Young Talent Competition. Based in Tokyo, Seki graduated from Hiko Mizuno College of Jewellery in 2020. It was during his time attending college, Norifumi created a timepiece as part of his course. He chose to create a pocket watch with an expansive three-dimensional moon phase display. The moon indication featured a titanium sphere, heat-blued on one side and gold plated on the other. The rationale behind this design was to augment readability, a feat Seki successfully achieved.
The ‘Spherical moon and drum calendar pocket watch’ featured two apertures in the lower portion of the dial, indicating date and month and imbuing the display with a harmonious symmetry. The dial was engraved with various guilloché motifs and silver plated, while the movement featured perlage, Côtes de Genève and, most notably, a hand engraved balance bridge and escape wheel cock.
Winning the Young Talent Competition heightened awareness of Norifumi Seki and his extraordinary watchmaking ability. Ultimately, he joined forces with his compatriots Johnny Ting and Hokutu Uedo, creating a new Japanese watch brand, ‘Quiet Club’. They have since produced a timepiece, ‘Fading Hours’, an interesting take on an alarm watch. Rather than waking the wearer with an intrusive shrill, Norifumi conceived an interesting mechanism where the dial is effectively the gong, struck from below by a vertical hammer, delivering a sweet sound. The movement within the watch is ‘fully designed, engineered and handcrafted’ by Norifumi Seki in the company’s Tokyo workshop.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2022 – Maciej Miśnik
Unlike the aforementioned competition winners, Maciej Miśnik did not attend watchmaking school; he is self-taught. For many individuals a lack of formal training will often prove an obstacle to advancement; however, Miśnik is clearly blessed with a remarkable intellect. He graduated from Gdansk University of Technology with a BSc in Physics in 2014 and subsequently completed his PhD in 2021.
Interestingly, Maciej Miśnik is a fifth generation watchmaker from Warsaw, hence horology is in his DNA. His entry, the ‘Marine design pocket watch with tourbillon and pivoted detent escapement’ was a highly ambitious undertaking. Crafted by hand without the use of CNC machines, the watch was created using traditional tools. The design was inspired by historical marine deck chronometers and the technical specification included both a tourbillon and a detent escapement. Maciej rejected conventional plating or coatings, preferring to present his metals in raw form. Sulphide was grown on silver elements and he merely added colour to the hands and screws using thermal bluing.
In 2024, Maciej Miśnik became a ‘candidate’ of the AHCI (Académie horlogère des créateurs indépendants). Often referred to as the ‘Academy’, the organisation has played an instrumental role in the career development of many members who have achieved notable success, including François-Paul Journe. Today, Maciej devotes his time to making fully bespoke horological creations.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2023 – Alexandre Hazemann
Alexandre Hazemann graduated from Lycée Edgar Faure, Morteau in July 2022. As part of his course, he produced a school watch, the ‘AH.02 Signature’ with help from his longtime friend, Victor Monnin, who also participated in the Young Talent Competition. Both men supported one another throughout the creation of their respective watches, sharing ideas, tools and expertise. Hazemann’s watch was a hugely ambitious undertaking, uniting a striking hour function with an instantaneous jumping hour display. He chose to reveal the hammer and gong front of house as well as the snail cam, lever and star wheel. The design reveals the movement’s various thought processes while at the same time proving eminently simple to read. Alexandre used a combination of traditional machines to create components along with modern CNC. The AH.02 Signature took more than 1200 hours to complete over an 8 month period.
Hazemann has always acknowledged the contribution of Victor Monnin in producing his competition-winning watch of 2023. The two men met at watchmaking school, forming a friendship in the first year that continues to endure.
Today, Hazemann & Monnin have established their own workshop where they craft the ‘School Watch’. Offered in two dial executions, the high-quality timepiece is sold on a souscription basis.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2024 – Thomas Aubert
Thomas Aubert, like several of his fellow prize winners, studied watchmaking at the Edgar Faure High School in Morteau, graduating in July 2023. His submission to the competition, ‘Séléne’, featured a ‘non-dragging animation’. Aubert was tasked with making the watch, using a base movement, for his final year project. With a keen interest in astronomy, the young watchmaker, just 23 years of age at the time, chose to depict a shooting star to the rear of the watch. As the timepiece is manually wound with a key, the wearer can momentarily escape, staring at the poetic, animated scene shown on the caseback.
Aside from the ‘glasses and the strap’, all components were the product of Aubert’s patience and skill. He selected a Unitas 6497 for the base movement, fulfilling the requirements of the project, but heavily modified it. Indeed, he created the bridges, mainplate, balance, time-setting and winding systems. Numerous components were made on traditional machines and finished using artisanal techniques such as hand-chamfering and mirror-polishing. Aubert credits fellow independent watchmakers Luc Monnet and Théo Auffret for their generous advice while developing his competition-winning entry.
In July 2023, within just a few days of graduating, Aubert opened his own workshop with his ‘friend and fellow classmate’, Alexis Ramel-Sartori. The two men specialise in creating ultra-fine components, using traditional vintage machines, for a number of prestigious watchmakers. The duo has also stated an intention to ultimately create timepieces that will bear their names.
F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition 2025 – Alexis Fruhauff
Alexis Fruhauff is the most recent winner of the F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition. He studied watchmaking at Lycée Diderot in Paris and continues to live and work in the city. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Fruhauff has chosen to focus on making clocks and cites Antide Janvier, famed for creating resonance clocks, as a source of inspiration.
His competition-winning entry, ‘Pendule à Seconde’, was endowed with a pivoted detent escapement with ‘lost beat’ (also known as ‘à coup perdu’ in French). Only the right pallet delivers an impulse to the escapement, causing the seconds hand to advance one second at a time. Equipped with two barrels, each fitted with a Maltese Cross stopworks, the force serving the escapement is constant. Fruhauff juxtaposed traditional materials with a modern alloy, Hardiall®. Likewise, he employed a mixture of modern and classical techniques to create components. Inspired by the cases cabinetmaker Jean-Ferdinand Schwerdfeger made for Antide Janvier, he chose to house the clock in a solid cherrywood case.
Recently, Fruhauff announced that he plans to open a workshop in Paris this autumn where he intends to craft pendulum clocks. Located at 10 Place des Victoires, Fruhauff will be in good company with Théo Auffret located on the fourth floor and SpaceOne’s showroom receiving visitors on the first floor.
Closing remarks
Several competition winners have followed in the footsteps of their forefathers, choosing to embark on a career in watchmaking. Often, they fell in love with the profession at a young age, with some choosing to attend watchmaking school.
While the watch industry continues to embrace cutting-edge know how eg CNC, EDM, etc, the competition winners have employed traditional non-computerised methods such as Schaublin lathes, jig borers, etc. Although modern computer-controlled equipment has its place, it is reassuring to see traditional techniques being used. The F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition clearly recognises the importance of preserving these traditional skills for the benefit of future generations.
These remarkable individuals are the future of Haute Horlogerie. They are destined to achieve success, crafting imaginative expressions of watchmaking excellence, free of compromise. The F.P.Journe Young Talent Competition has assisted them in realising their potential, attracting valuable press coverage and boosting public awareness of these young talented individuals.
As for François-Paul Journe, he could have chosen to take life a little easier, perhaps enjoying the fruits of his labour; however, instead he has chosen to put something back, encouraging the next generation of talented watchmakers to realise their potential. Maybe to understand his motives, we need to look to Journe’s past.
His mother recognised her son’s innate curiosity and determination, long before he did and she was the first person to encourage him to embark on a career in watchmaking. Thereafter, Michel Journe recognising his nephew’s latent ability, helped him realise his potential. Perhaps it’s a case of history repeating itself, but without the encouragement of his mother and uncle, the world may never have witnessed the inventive and creative talents of François-Paul Journe.