There are different things that triggers every watch enthusiast. For me there are two things a watch needs to have, an interesting movement and a nice design. One of the true high-end brands that is so rare that I have never spotted one in real life is F.P. Journe. Still alive and still active as a watchmaker Francois-Paul Journe designs and produces his watches in Geneva. The watch face is first designed and later the movement that will make the watch useful. The first watches are supposedly made by Journe himself, while training the watchmaker assigned to the model that Journe has designed and developed.
The brand boutiques are few, with only three brand boutiques in Europe and a few more retailers, finding a place to have a look at them is a bit of a challenge for someone from Scandinavia. When visiting Geneva, I went to the boutique to see the watches and get some first-hand experience with them.
For me, seeing them they strike me as very refined watches with one unique characteristic, the hands. The only watch brand that I know of to have drop-shaped hands is F.P. Journe. Seeing the watches on a computer screen, the hands did not look right to me I found them too big and weird. In person, they are much more refined and smaller than I previously thought, not at all as much distracting as I first found them to be on the computer. Since I am not very fond of sports watches personally, though I still own a Seiko SKX and a Tudor Black Bay, the sports line that is made by the brand is not that interesting to me. But then while looking at the other watches by the brand, they really shine in the segment of Haute Horlogerie, a
With two lines of watches in the more traditional style of watches, the Octa and the Souverain. Not knowing the lines of watches by heart, when I looked at them in the display, I let my heart speak and chose to have a closer look at the one that spoke to me the most. When offering me to have a closer look at the watches, as they probably realised that the movements are what I find interesting, I chose to have a closer look at the Octa Lune. The watch in question is a 42 mm rose gold automatic watch with a moon phase and big date and power reserve. The main time display is off centre with small seconds at 6 o’clock. The dial is salmon coloured and the strap is brown alligator leather.
I have not really been a big fan of salmon dial watches. One of the most popular dial colours today it never strikes me as something that I like. The platinum version has a grey dial that I find is beautiful. My big issue is that I prefer the rose gold to the platinum version. However, I prefer the dial on
Where this watch really shines is the movement. Many brands use some gold parts in the movements, especially parts that need to have a high moment of inertia like the rotor in automatic movement. While gold is quite soft which is bad when constructing a machine that a watch movement is, it is possible to make gold alloys that are harder than normal 22 or 18-carat gold. F.P. Journe makes their movements in gold. Most parts are 18 carats while parts that need to be harder are in harder lower carat alloys. The rotor that needs more mass, is made in 22-carat gold. Where I found the material making the movement more interesting to me is in the balance wheel. The part of the watch that keeps time. The frequency of the balance wheel is decided by the moment of inertia of the balance wheel. The moment of inertia is decided by the mass of the object. With a density more than twice that of the density of steel or brass, gold requires less volume for a certain mass and ultimately the moment of inertia. The balance wheel on this watch almost looks like it is made of wire. To me, it is a unique feature that shows off the material aspect of gold and that I feel is often overlooked. The movement is absolutely beautiful it is where I think high end watches really differentiates from regular watches. The materials the finishing, the processes used to make them. I think F.P. Journe is one of those watch brands that is noticeably different than others.
This is a genuinely astonishing watch brand, if you see a watch from the brand in real life it is something truly unique. Forget Rolex, forget Omega, these are some really interesting watches. Rolexes and Omegas are interesting in their own way, but as a piece of art, they cannot compete with F.P. Journe in any way. If I would get enough money to spare in the future, Journe will be a brand that I would consider. F.P. Journe is about the kind of watches and watchmaking that I like and probably also the reason why I enjoyed the experience of having a closer look at this watch.
