Debuting in 2002, the Octa Calendrier was the world's first annual calendar with retrograde date. Shortly after launching that year, it won the 'Special Jury Prize' at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. The Calendrier was the first FP Journe to win an award at the GPHG and third of the five foundational FP Journe Octa models (Octa is Latin for 'infinite', here meaning self-wound). This 'infinite' calendar only needs to be adjusted once per year in February, accounting for the long and short months throughout the year. It is not the fundamental complication, but the way François-Paul designed and engineered it which makes the Calendrier not just romantic, but unrivaled. The Calendrier remains one of the most audacious and considered annual calendars ever conceived.
This complication was packaged in the original dimensions and baseplate of the Octa Calibre, just 30mm in diameter and 5.7mm thin with its sizable 10.1mm chronometric balance. For the Calendrier, François-Paul employed a specialist spring maker to create a 1-meter long, .1mm thin mainspring to provide as much uniform energy delivery as possible. This provided a 160 hour reserve, of which the chronometry was guaranteed through 120 hours. The result was that this calibre 1300.3 requires 241 components, made entirely in pink gold with a double quickset. All calendar functions are adjusted through the crown, leaving the case uninterrupted by pushers. The winding mass is a guilloché performance on a 22k gold rotor placed off-center for maximal moment. Further, its movement is a showcase of delicate perlage, circular striping, fine anglage, and hand engraving.
Made between 2005 and 2014, now discontinued, this 40mm Calendrier features a white gold dial with guilloché. FP Journe is known to design his dials first, which shows here. Its dial builds on the asymmetry established by the Octa Réserve de Marche, adding a counter to the visual mass of the right-hand side dial by integrating its calendar works on the left. The Calendrier was succeeded by the symmetrical Octa Quantième Perpétuel, leaving the more esoteric and distinct retrograde Calendrier for collectors alone. The years since the introduction of the perpetual calendar have shown the Calendrier to be not just the more eccentric, but the more desirable calendar of FP Journe. This 40mm pink gold case with white gold dial, which makes the blued steel hands sing, is one of the more desirable and contrasting variants.
The Octa Calendrier has rapidly become one of the most collected annual calendars and FP Journes of its time. The audacious dial arrangement didn't just gain it quick acclaim at GPHG, but a long-term respect and admiration from Journes collectors, whose attention is increasingly turning toward the classics in FP Journe's earlier works. There is a romance and mechanical charm to the retrograde calendar and its underlying complication, an arrangement that could only be created from the imagination of a genius watchmaker and artist such as François-Paul. It is complicated, proportionally refined, aesthetically elegant, and daring: the very core of François-Paul showing through in his work, full of the personality so many seek in independent watchmaking.
