What's the deal with FP Journe? (Hype machine)

[22s]

So I'm intrigued - how does building a hype machine like FP Journe work? Why are some of the watches going for such insane prices?

There are tonnes of small watchmakers who make beautiful, complicated watches - so why does FP Journe get some much hype and crazy pricing, over - say - Laurent Ferrier or Gronefeld? Sure, those two also make expensive watches - but not $2m at auction expensive.

Is it literally a case of collusion in the shadows of the industry - collectors hoover them up, make them even more scarce, then bid them up for each other at auction to build the hype?

Or is there something I'm missing? I could be very naive here (probably!); I'm genuinely curious as to how this works.

[DB15]

You could say the same about Rolex or many other brands.
Suddenly market wakes, people start talking about him, someone with stacks of money wants one of his watches and finds out only 7 exist
Then the insta chavs start talking about them as investments even though 3 minutes before the only watch maker they could name were rolex.
20 years ago i could have bought one of his watches for £25,000 from an AD. Probably £400k plus today.