På tide å dele dette intervjuet som er gjort av Osama S.(@
thejourneguy)
Interview on October 27, 2015
pic credit:Jack Curtis
Introduction
In 1976, François-Paul Journe graduated from the Paris School of Watchmaking and began a journey that would eventually end up placing him amongst the ranks of the world's greatest watchmakers to ever live. The winner of several awards, which include 3 Golden Hands at the GPHG, Mr. Journe has developed a reputation among the world of horology that recognizes his unique aesthetics and ground-breaking mechanical breakthroughs which include, the Tourbillon Souverain, Resonance, and more recently, the Elegante, housing the most beautiful quartz movement ever made. Mr. Journe, the man behind the well-established brand "F.P. Journe", has without doubt developed a cult of dedicated collectors over the years, and behind his followers come a never-ending development of questions about Journe, his work, and his brand.
Recently, I was informed that Mr. Journe would be making a surprise visit to New York so I came up with an idea to conduct a unique interview. The fans and collectors would forward me their questions and I would then compile everything together and that would be the basis of our interview; fan questions. The idea was forwarded to Mr. Journe and his staff, all of whom were extremely supportive and I was given the OK. Questions were sent in and the next thing I know, I meet up with Mr. Journe at his NYC boutique and from there we go to have some lunch and the questions start rolling out.
Throughout the interview, I noticed that Mr. Journe has a very clear and laid out set of goals that he is dedicated to achieve. The ultimate quest towards "precision" and trying to make a mechanical movement as accurate as a quartz is Mr. Journe's drive every single day at his workbench. One realizes that Mr. Journe never makes anything for the sake of making it but rather, it has to follow his ultimate goal of precision, which even so is one of his ultimate basis in judging any mechanical watch. Further, as we progressed, I was constantly being reminded in the back of my head the time when Mr. Journe said, that if he could afford to, he would have only made one watch of each model, not sell it but write a book about it. To him, it was never a business, but since day one, this dream and passion to convert his ideas to a reality is probably one of, if not THE main concern to him. It was a real honor to be allowed to interview and sit down with one of the most honest men in the horological industry, Mr. François-Paul Journe.
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The new Quantième Perpétuel(QP). A perpetual calendar with calendar windows that jump precisely at midnight, all at the exact same time.
Osama: Since you are wearing the new Quantieme Perpetuel, I'd like to start with that. You released it in 2012, but it has only appeared on your website in late 2015, so what were some of the contributions that delayed the production of this timepiece?
François-Paul Journe: It should have been launched in the boutiques by the end of 2012 but I had some technical problems that were specific to this new QP. It is not like the old OP, but it a whole new different movement. One of the issues that I had was that it was sometimes working and sometimes not working and sometimes for a watchmaker is the worst answer possible. With this movement, I had to change absolutely everything but the one thing I could not see is the jump. The jump takes 16/1000th of a second and the problem is that our eyes cannot see this since it is 10x longer than we can even blink. So I had to buy a camera for 60,000 CHF that could capture 4000 pictures per second and that way I could actually understand what was happening at this speed. I have been teased regarding my ability to make a QP but the fact is that I have already made the OP before so I am not going to make the same one again. That is not fair to the collectors but it is also not fun for me! If I do something new, I have to do something totally new.
The Octa Perpétuelle (OP), released as a Limited Edition of 99 pieces in 2009.
O: The Elegante that you recently released is a quartz breakthrough in a way. Do you have any intentions to implement that technology into a men's collection?
FPJ: January.
The new Élégante, housing a unique quartz mechanism that goes into sleep mode after 30-40 minutes. Once the movement detects motion, the hands take the shortest path to the current time.
O: In 2009, you came out with the Repetition Souveraine but unlike most other repeaters that we are familiar with, there is no "pause" between the quarter-hours and the minutes. Was there a technical or symbolic reason for that?
FPJ: Firstly, there is a pause but it is very minimal. The minute repeaters from the 19th century set a standard and basically every minute repeater today is based on that concept. So everyone is basically doing the same thing because that is the reference for minute repeaters. Since I was recreating the whole movement, I was not getting inspired from the 19th century but I went further back - to the 18th century - when everything was different. Regarding the format, I did not have to adhere to the usual format of today because I wanted a fast delivery. When you use a repeater you want the information immediately and you should not have to wait.
The stainless steel Répétition Minutes Souveraine, with a movement only 4.10mm in height.
O: Do you have any new plans for a new model in the LineSport? Perhaps something with a center seconds or even a dive watch in your own style?
FPJ: Diving, no. I have some ideas to develop the LineSport but I have not had the time to work on it. It would be something completely different and new.
O: Center seconds? The reason I ask is because some are wondering if you would come up with a new Royal Oak or Nautilus styled watch, with only a center seconds and a date.
FPJ: If I make a center seconds I have to add gears and that is against my philosophy as it adds friction therefore loss of accuracy. It does not make sense to me and there is no logic. You have never seen a marine chronometer with a center sweep seconds [laughs].
O: So you currently work with five case materials namely; rose gold, platinum, titanium, tantalum, and steel. Do you have any other materials that you want to work with in the future?
FPJ: No, not at the moment. Actually, there is one new alloy that I have been working on and that just passed the laboratory tests. But that will be exclusive for a special project that I can't comment on further.
O: The Vagabondage series has unusual ways of displaying time. Are there any other ways you wish to explore?
FPJ: There is a third model for the vagabondage series that will end the trilogy. After that probably not.
O: Recently, I would say that the Chronomètre Bleu is probably one of your top seller pieces. Are there any plans to discontinue it or perhaps doing something similar in a different color?
FPJ: Neither. What I want to do is to make more complicated movements, not simpler ones.
O: The Chronomètre Optimum is the first of your timepieces to have the patented direct impulse bi-axial escapement. Are there any plans to use this escapement in any of your current lineup or something in the future?
FPJ: It is only going to stay in the Optimum. The escapement takes so much volume and is such a big one that it does not really fit with other watches that I want to make. The Optimum for me was a goal and I achieved that goal so now I have to go back to classic chronometry.
The Chronomètre Optimum, Journe's most accurate timepiece.
O: Speaking of escapements; George Daniels was a very close friend and mentor to you for well over 20 years. His published works helped you in making your very first watch, so why have you chosen not to use his co-axial escapement in any of your timepieces?
FPJ: Reason being, George is doing George's watches and Francois-Paul makes Francois-Paul's watches. Why copy someone else? Where is the fun in that?
O: Your thoughts on finishing? Do you find it something purely aesthetic to showcase an expensive watch or are there mechanical reasons behind it?
FPJ: Finishing is purely aesthetic. The Swatch works pretty well also [laughs].
O: Do you have one?
FPJ: No.
O: What are your top three innovative movements in the market today that you do not make?
FPJ: [silence] nothing.
[Pierre laughs and asks the question again]
FPJ: The problem that I have... it's like most of the companies right now they have to do marketing. For example, they are going to have a dead seconds. Why? We have no idea. We don't have a dead seconds, we have a natural dead seconds that is coupled to the Remontoir d'Egalite. I did not purposely make a dead seconds. Why would you do this? There is no logic and there is way too much marketing. A tourbillon that defies gravity? No, it does not defy gravity. Mixing a tourbillon and a chronograph is like... they don't mix. It is like oil and water, they don't mix and it is not good.
O: That said, what combined characteristics to you, make a well-made or Journe-approved watch?
FPJ: It has to give the time. If you cannot tell time, or cannot read the time, hopefully in a precise way it already does not qualify. For example, going back to your previous question about why I don't use a central seconds. It is because you are not going to be as precise. You will be much more precise without it because of the gears and because of the weight. So you have 3 reasons why. Extra gears leading to extra friction and thus loss of precision. Second, the weight of the central seconds hand. Thirdly, because of the dynamic. When you go like this [moves arm] you have inertia, and it will stop moving with the gears and therefore have friction and loss of precision. So to have the 'poinçon' of Journe, it is simply to have the logic and integrity to make sure that it can tell the time in the best way possible, so anything that is detrimental, I am not going to do it.
O: So what would you recommend to a new collector who wants a watch and has a $10,000 budget?
FPJ: Rolex.
O: Rolex?
FPJ: They make solid watches [laughs].
Octa movement, capable of delivering up to 5 days of chronometric timekeeping from a single barrel
O: What steps do you go through when you design a dial and say "this is worthy of F.P. Journe?"
FPJ: It is not an easy question. We are talking about aesthetics and my dials and therefore I cannot explain why they look this way and not another way. I don't really know. All of them have the DNA [points to a Quantieme Perpetuel, Elegante, and Chronometre Souverain] but they are all different and yet they are Journe's. It is difficult for me to say why they look the way they do.
O: So now I want to talk about you. You got into watchmaking by chance and everyone knows that. You got your diploma on June 24, 1976 and that means as of today (Oct. 27, 2015), you have been an official watchmaker for 14,369 days...
FPJ: Wow. That's a lot. Can I even sleep at night? [laughs]
O: 14,369 days. Why do you keep on doing what you do? Why is it that you wake up every morning and decide "I want to become a watchmaker"?
FPJ: I don't know what else I could do [shrugs].
O: So let's pretend that watchmaking didn't exist. What would you have wanted to do as your career?
FPJ: I would have loved to be in the car industry, something like F1 working on engines. It is also much easier to be a part of that industry because here, you work with millimeters and microns whereas with engines it is a much larger scale.
O: If you were to go back to the start of your business, is there anything you would have done differently?
FPJ: Before Journe watches, it is always difficult to tell what I would have done have I started again, because you don't know if it is going to be better. When I had the company THA, it was a failure but maybe I needed that failure to understand people and to understand watchmaking and that is an experience. So I might have done that differently but at the same time I would not have been as good without it. Under Journe, I don't think I would have done anything differently. I work in my own space and do not have to worry about marketing since this is simply my expression. I just do what I want to do at my own leisure and what people want is not really my problem.
O: So what piece of advice would you give to a watchmaker who recently graduated?
FPJ: I had a piece of advice from someone that passed away a long time ago, when I was 17 or 18. How do I become a watchmaker when I graduate? Well it is easy. You read books and you go to museums. If you don't understand something in the museums, you go back to the books and if you don't understand something in the books then you have to see, so it is this going back and forth. The idea is that if you want to become a true watchmaker and become innovative, you can't do anything new if you don't know what happened before. The history is the base for the present and the future.
O: Speaking of books; I want to talk about Jean-Claude Sabrier. He was a famous horological historian and a friend of yours who unfortunately recently passed away. His extensive library of around 1000 books recently went up for auction and you bought all of them for around 760,000 CHF. Why did you decide to do that?
FPJ: First, I never really planned on purchasing them. Jean-Claude was not just a friend but a dear friend with whom I could exchange a lot of ideas and a lot of history and I had a lot of respect for. It was a life's work, these 1000 books, and I could not have this collection scattered. The assembly is more than just the parts. So where do you showcase 1000 books? I still have some of my own books in the basement of the manufacture. When I was in Los Angeles in the spring, I came up with an idea to set up the showroom of the manufacture and have the whole back wall with just books. This would be the life of Jean-Claude Sabrier so it will be called 'The Jean-Claude Sabrier Library' not François-Paul's since it is not mine, it is Jean-Claude's.
Mr. Jean-Claude Sabrier
pic credit: unknown source
O: Mr. Journe, your work is becoming highly coveted by collectors across the globe, today actually, you will be this surrounded by people wearing or dreaming to wear watches that bear your name. How do you feel when you see people going crazy or even wearing your work?
FPJ: It is not really recognition that I look after. There is certainly an element of satisfaction but not recognition. It is interesting because after I finish a watch, I rarely see it after as I am always working on the next watch. So when I see my watches being worn by another person I always think that maybe there is something I could have changed there or improved upon there.
O: You are known to have great respect for and plenty of inspiration from the great watchmakers of the 18th century, which is very clear and evident in your work. In fact, some would say you have a foot in the 21st century and another in the 18th. So if the great watchmakers of the 18th century were to somehow rise, and they entered your boutique and examined your work, what do you hope they would say to you and what would you want to say to them?
FPJ: They would say "Aah, amazing!" Why? Because they missed 200 years of innovation [laughs]. You have to understand that we are producing much more and much more precisely than these men. For example, in his whole life, Breguet never produced more than 5,000 watches and he lived a long life. He was a big producer and had 30 watchmakers. One of my dreams is that one day I go to a bar and I see Breguet, Berthoud, Lépine, Janvier, and my dream would be that they would say "Ah! François-Paul! How are you? Come join us and let's talk about watches". That would be my dream, to be recognized by these Masters.
O: The question on nearly everyone's mind; you have described your work as a passion and your company as your dream, so what do you want to become of this dream in the next 50 or 100 years? What does the future of FP Journe have planned?
FPJ: That will always be the crucial time, when they try to recreate my DNA into the new creations. The only ones that really succeeded with this is Audemars Piguet. The Royal Oak was like a breakthrough in the history of Audemars Piguet. They did not have the Royal Oak before and today it is their main business. They didn't have a DNA before anyways and they had to create an identity. When you look at Louis Cartier, we still have a lot of the DNA of Louis Cartier and so it is possible.
O: What about the brand? Does the brand continue in the future?
FPJ: There is no reason why it would stop. Ferrari is still here but where is Enzo Ferrari?
O: In 200 years, I mean now when people talk about great watchmaking they say the name "Breguet". So in 200 years when people say the name "François-Paul Journe", what do you hope they would say?
FPJ: First, why Breguet? Because he is the biggest and he created a revolution. It is not easy to answer because this art is kind of "fossilized". At that time, innovation was for scientific reasons. The greatest scientists were watchmakers before anybody else. It was John Harrison that won the prize for the Longitude, not Isaac Newton so the watchmakers were really at the foremost of the industry. Right now, it is a little bit different because it is not necessary. So in the future, people will look at my watches as a piece of art and then they will decide if it is a good or bad piece of art. It will not be judged on its functionality characteristics. When you look at Lépine's work, it was functional and it was very important whereas now it is a work of art.
O: There are rumors that watch movements self-regulate in your presence; and that you sleep to the sound of amplified escapements; and that you are actually 12 men. Can you comment on any of these rumors?
FPJ: [laughs] The self-regulation is probably true [laughs]. I don't fall asleep to the sound of escapements and I actually don't know how many I am. [laughs]
O: I might have made up those rumors. Thank you very much for your time.
FIN
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My sincere thanks to
-Mr. Pierre Halimi, General Manager of Montres Journe America, for all his help with translating and providing me with all the help I needed to make this interview happen.
-Michelle Yeterian, Fabienne Van Wambeke, and William Newman, of FP Journe NYC for their help in scheduling.
-Our own moderator, Felipe Jordão for his support and help.
*All pics credit to F.P. Journe, unless mentioned otherwise.
Regards,
Osama S.(@thejourneguy)
