Shin Ohno wins F.P. Journe's Young Talent Competition 2026 with a repeater and tourbillon watch.
- Nuno Margalha
- Apr 23
- 2 min read
FP Journe announced the winner of the 2026 edition of the Young Talent Competition , an initiative created in 2015 to identify and support the new generation of independent watchmakers. This year's winner was 27-year-old Japanese watchmaker Shin Ohno, recognized for his creation Fuyu-Geshiki (“Winter Landscape”), presented during a ceremony held at the brand's manufacture in Geneva.
Organized by FP Journe with the support of The Hour Glass, one of the leading luxury watch retailers in the Asia-Pacific region, the competition seeks to give visibility to young watchmakers capable of designing and manufacturing independent projects of high technical complexity. The winner receives a diploma and a grant of 50,000 Swiss francs, intended for the purchase of tools or the financing of future watchmaking projects.
Trained at the National Institute of Technology, Toyota College, Shin Ohno developed the winning watch entirely in his own workshop — from the design of the movement to the manufacture of the components — without resorting to any base caliber.
Inspired by the winter landscapes of Nagano, Japan, the piece brings together a particularly ambitious combination of complications: grande sonnerie , petite sonnerie , repetition of quarters, and vortex.
According to the organization, the project stood out both for its technical rigor and its conceptual clarity, visible in the architecture of the movement, the acoustic work, and the care applied to materials and finishes.
The jury for the 2026 edition brought together some of the most important figures in contemporary watchmaking, including Andreas Strehler, Giulio Papi, Marc Jenni, Michael Tay, Elizabeth Doerr, and François-Paul Journe.
More than just awarding a single piece, the competition continues to establish itself as one of the few international platforms truly geared towards the future of independent watchmaking — and Shin Ohno's work demonstrates that this new generation is already producing pieces of enormous technical ambition.
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