Designed around a concept of high-performance and advanced technologies unique to Richard Mille, this brand’s watches offer radical styling with an emphasis on perfection and luxury. Selecting the tourbillon as his launch timepiece and taking it steps further—ensuring chronometer status and perfection of use—Richard Mille has unveiled a watch unlike any other.
A veteran in the watch industry, Richard Mille began his career in 1974 as a commercial director for one of the world’s largest watch companies, where he remained for 20 years. In 1994, Mille joined the renowned house of Mauboussin and for four years acted as CEO in different capacities. In 1998, Mille resigned as president and CEO of Mauboussin’s watch division and opted to strike out on his own. Initially, Mille consulted with a number of companies about their watch development, including Audemars Piguet, Repossi and Baccarat. In fact, he created and developed the Baccarat watch, which was just launched in late 2002.
At the same time, Mille was developing his own timepiece. Inspired by the perfection found in the automotive and aviation industries, and impressed with high-tech mechanical objects, Mille vowed to create a performance timepiece.
His designs were incomparable in standards and incorporated a specially developed tourbillon escapement. The innovative technical choices applied to the design of this sophisticated watch required thousands of hours to develop. For more than a year, Mille designed and redesigned his watch until he had achieved perfection.
For extensive periods, he subjected his timepieces to rigorous testing and fine-tuning to ensure precision and reliability. Finally, in 2001, Mille was ready to begin production of his watches. The first watch was the Tourbillon RM 001, launched in August 2001. It was followed that same year with the Tourbillon RM 002—an evolution of the first watch featuring a titanium plate and function indicator. In 2002, Mille unveiled the Tourbillon RM 003 with dual-time indicator. Indeed, Mille has a number of exciting new inventions in the works with plans for expansion.
Richard Mille timepieces offer a very different conceptual approach in the luxury watch field. It is Mille’s goal to be to the watch industry what Ferrari and Mc Laren are to the automotive field—technologically advanced, innovative and performance oriented. Indeed, the image of Mille is anything but typical. The timepieces produced by this brand are the results of a very talented team of engineers working in an ultra-modern production workshop to serve as strong 21st century concept.
The Richard Mille watch is an object of relentless reliability and bold difference. All of the components have been manufactured from scratch and many are totally integrated. Every detail of the Richard Mille watches have been the subject of extreme scrutiny. Each movement contains 267 components—the production of which require more than 20,000 mechanical operations. Even the tiny titanium screws used in the watch undergo twenty or more operations before meeting Richard Mille’s approval.
The main elements of the movement—including the flexible tourbillon and barrel bridges—have been specially studied and tested to achieve a high level of shock resistance. Richard Mille has developed a special, rapidly rotating spring barrel that is designed to ensure a smooth power flow by improving the slippage between turns. Additionally, the brand has created a new escapement design that is aimed at reducing friction. Indeed, all aspects of the research and development of the Richard Mille watch has been designed to achieve remarkable performance while preserving significant power reserve. Richard Mille has also worked with Audemars Piguet/Renaud & Papi to develop the use of nano-robots to implement certain processes.
The materials used for Richard Mille watches are high-tech, including titanium, ceramic (for the cap jewel on the tourbillon) and ARCAP (an alloy with superb mechanical properties of endurance and resistance to distortion). Cases are luxuriously hand milled of 18-karat gold or platinum, and no casing ring is required in the integrated production of the watch. In terms of design, comfort is key. The watch has an ergonomically curved case and lateral ribs for extra strength. |