The F.P.Journe Chronomètre Souverain platinum watch hands-on

The F.P.Journe Chronomètre Souverain collection is the brand’s hero as much as any lineSport or an élégante model. If you’re eager to discover what sets the boutique brand apart from the mainstream premium brands competitors, turn your head to the marketplace. F.P.Journe is not a single-piece-oriented brand; it hits the spot with an array of quintessentially classic timepieces, eagerly wanted as soon as they hit the stores, whereas they usually pile up in the sales displays with most luxury brands. Each timepiece crafted by Francois-Paul Journe is highly sought-after by those in the know aiming for the best.

F.P.Journe produces 900 watches annually and getting yours, whatever the model and complication, requires patience. The brand’s boutiques and selected retailers – the timepiece you see comes from exclusive-for-Italy retailer GMT Italia which houses a dedicated “Espace Journe” inside their boutique in Milan – sell their watches to selected connoisseurs, avoiding any next-day resellers.

The brand’s staggering success is a case study, and its creations steadily grow their hammer prices auction to auction while offering ingenuity and uncommon technical excellence that refuse the ordinary inside and out.

A Chronomètre Souverain is your privileged access to F.P.Journe’s offering, something that won’t break the bank as long as spending tens of thousands of Euros on watches is your practice. You’ll appreciate that you’re not giving up on technical specifications or fine decoration; the top-down design approach means every part and assembly is a simplified version of the brand’s top-end model, and that’s what you get. Francois-Paul fosters accuracy as few other watchmakers do, proving there’s no beauty without chronometry and the other way around.

The (here pictured) F.P.Journe Chronomètre Souverain’s platinum case comes standard at 40 mm across, measuring a smile-on-your-face 8.00 mm in thickness. The achievement starts with a hand-winding mechanism packed with plenty of remarkable technical feats. First and foremost, the timepiece tapers your wrist, offering a rare combination of elegance and smoothness that end up with a small, platinum tang buckle; proof positive of terrific attention to detail is in the tiny, recessed-looking winding crown, too: its rope-shaped pattern helps grasp it to wind the watch quickly.

The off-centre layout – as much as the auxiliary counters are concerned – is F.P.Journe’s pedigree: bottom left is the running seconds counter; the right-hand side holds the triangular power reserve gauge. Please read it upside down. Zero means the barrels are fully wound, ready to release their energy for the next 56 hours.

Here is, therefore, a consumption gauge – in the way of the marine chronometers – not a power reserve indicator. A Clous de Paris motif is the must-have decoration executed by master artisans from the workshops of Les Cadraniers de Genève, a high-end dial maker owned by the brand, whose vertical-integrated process ensures product quality through the whole assembly process.

The gold-made Calibre 1304

The dial is not the primary talking point, but Journe being Journe, the mechanical movement’s concept and execution outperform the competition to a greater extent: the hand-wound Calibre 1304 comes standard with gold bridges and main plate. This product choice works as a brand identity enabler and marks a giant leap over anything in the benchmark; from a distance, I appreciate the outcome as much as I do, for instance, while admiring a Breguet Tradition and its parachute-equipped movement. It’s all about the uniqueness of the value proposition. Also, the gear train is hidden under the dial, cleaning up the assembly, excluding the barely-visible central wheel.

The movement houses a free-sprung balance wheel to ensure superior timing accuracy. However, while the free-sprung balance wheel is a common choice in Haute Horlogerie, less so is Journe’s technical solution at first sight; you will notice that the weights have an opening. To allow a precise setting (no more/less than 10 seconds), the watchmaker turns the weights along their axis to move the opening and thus modify the inertia.

A two-barrel design guarantees superior performance, delivering an almost regular power release while slimming off the case; their displacement allows for enhanced thickness marking a 4.00 mm size. The cleaned-up layout enhances the Côtes de Genève decoration and perlage execution on full-gold bridges and the main plate.

Final thoughts

Let’s kick off our final thoughts by announcing the retail price: an F.P.Journe Chronomètre Souverain currently sells from 35,600 CHF (the platinum model pictured above sells for 38,600 CHF) excluding taxes, hence a reasonable price considering product ingenuity, technical pedigree and platinum case plus a strictly limited production.

The Chronomètre Souverain is also available on a platinum bracelet (clearly at a higher price). If we exclude a 30-meter water resistance, which you might regard as the only improvement area, it’s hard to find any deal breaker to such a unique, technically outstanding, hand-made take on the most classic formula.

(Photo credit: Horbiter®)

Giovanni Maria Di Biase @Horbiter®