Name
Alexandre Hazemann
Age 22
Lives in Pontarlier, a town in eastern France near the border with Switzerland
Claim to fame Mr. Hazemann won the 2023 F.P. Journe Young Talent Competition, an annual contest organized by the brand to help students and recent graduates establish themselves in independent watchmaking.
The origins Mr. Hazemann’s timepiece is what the industry calls a school watch, which he made during his seventh and final year at the prestigious watchmaking program of Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau, France. In fact, Mr. Hazemann and his classmate, Victor Monnin, collaborated on their watches and submitted both, but only one could be chosen as the winner. “We have always been friends,” Mr. Hazemann said. “Through our years of studying together, we realized the importance of teamwork.”
The watch The AH.02 Signature is a 42-millimeter timepiece with a stainless steel case. It chimes as the hours pass and features a jump hour complication where the hour hand jumps to the next numeral on the dial. The production of this watch took around 1,200 hours. “Although the school only requires a functional prototype movement, we wanted to create a watch that is wearable and appealing to collectors,” he said. To achieve this, both Mr. Hazemann’s and Mr. Monnin’s watches were fitted with custom-made straps from the French leather brand Jean Rousseau and dials covered with sapphire crystals by Sébal, a renowned specialist in Switzerland.
His method “Our strength was organization, and we took it to the extreme with daily schedules and briefings at 6 a.m.,” Mr. Hazemann explained. He and his classmate shared an apartment near the school during their final three years of study.
His interest in timepieces His interest in watchmaking was sparked by his father, a precision mechanic at a watch factory in the Val-de-Travers area of Switzerland. In recent years, he has been influenced by renowned independent watchmakers François-Paul Journe, Rexhep Rexhepi, and Maximilian Büsser, founder of MB&F.
A typical day After an early run, he travels to Le Locle, Switzerland, where he is enrolled in a three-year program at the Centre de Formation Professionnelle Neuchâtelois. His week consists of two days attending courses on watch construction and three days working at a prototype workshop in Val-de-Travers with the experienced French watchmaker Emmanuel Bouchet. “This training focuses on watch construction and 3-D design,” said Mr. Hazemann. “By the end of the course, I will have comprehensive expertise in watchmaking.”
About the prize For winning the competition, Mr. Hazemann received a prize of 20,000 Swiss francs, equivalent to $22,330. He plans to invest this money in acquiring various watchmaking machines such as a Sixis milling machine for precision machining, a Hauser M1 pointing machine for punching holes in watch parts, and pivoting and rounding lathes for making final adjustments to sprockets and axles. “I aim to expand my watchmaking tools, gain more experience, and mature as a watchmaker,” he said.
However, Andreas Strehler, an independent watchmaker in Switzerland and a member of the contest jury, noted that Mr. Hazemann’s winning watch didn’t “look like a student’s work. It already looks like a commercial watch.”
And, next… “My goal is still to learn as much as possible and gain enough experience so that once I feel ready, I can establish myself as an independent watchmaker.”
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