Alexandre Hazemann wins F.P. Journe's Young Talent Competition.

The Jury of the 2023 Young Talent Competition have cast their votes for this year's winner. The competition for young watchmakers is organized by F.P. Journe with support from Singapore-based retailer The Hour Glass. Its winner, Alexandre Hazemann, is a graduate of Lycée Edgar Faure in the French commune of Morteau.

The name of his winning entry is the AH.02 Signature project. The watch that the 23-year-old student worked on from October 2021 to June 2022 set out to marry jumping hours with an hour-striking mechanism. Hazemann collaborated with fellow student Victor Monnin, who was responsible for machining components and project management.

They succeeded in achieving their goal and created a beautiful watch while they were at it with openworked components on the dial. The watch owner can observe each stage as the striking mechanism is activated when one hour transitions to the next.

The watch strikes every hour, so Hazemann decided to link the jump of the hammer to the jump of the hour. This meant they had to use a lever to stay in contact with the hour cam right in the center of the dial. For the jumping hours, a "finger" attached to the end of the lever drives the star wheel when the lever falls on the cam.

The lever is also connected to a hammer it releases when the cam jumps so that the hammer strikes the gong stretched all the way around the dial with all its inertia. Hazemann also developed a unidirectional time setting system where the cam can only rotate in one direction for its own protection.

The movement houses an automatic LJP 6900 movement which has been reworked and finished by the young watchmakers. Hazemann and Monnin designed and constructed the jumping hour mechanism themselves and decorated all the components for the watch by hand, the only exceptions being the glass and strap.