Keeping time – Richard Mille, founder of the eponymous pioneering watch brand, talks us through the highs and hardships of pursuing his dream
WHEN Frenchman Richard Mille decided to create his own luxury watch brand in 1999, many told him his dreams could not be realised; his ideas were too audacious, his designs too impossible to create. However, 17 years on, Mille’s watches have become some of the most famous in the world and his bold ideas have served him well. His RM 056 split seconds chronograph tourbillon, for example, was the world’s first watchcase to be built entirely from sapphire, enabling every aspect of the incredibly complicated tourbillon movement inside to be viewed. As another example, the RM 027-01, developed in collaboration with tennis star Rafael Nadal, was the world’s lightest tourbillon watch, weighing just 20 grams, which, in Mille’s own words, is “ridiculously light”.
Here Mille takes time out of his hectic schedule to talk us through some of the key moments and decisions of his career.
Richard Mille
You decided to create your own brand in 1999, some 15 years after you made your start in the watchmaking industry. Whilst you initially collaborated with friends in the horology industry and even the renowned matchmakers Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APR&P), how were you so sure it was the right time to embark on a project by yourself?
You can never be sure of anything really … I wanted, very simply, to make the watch of my dreams that I could never find anywhere. Everything I wanted – people told me it was impossible to make it like this or like that – you know there was always a wall. I never believed that this wall was really there. I was determined to break through it and make my own watch as I wanted. APR&P are the world experts for all types of complications from the tourbillon and further.
Their expertise is second to none in this respect and we have a wonderful working relationship with them. For the automatic movements, we work with other specialists such as Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier. We also have our own in-house-designed automatic and tourbillon movements as well as certain movement components, including baseplates and bridges which are fashioned on site at ProArt factory in Les Breuleux.
Did you ever ask yourself if the world really needs another watch brand?
Let me put it differently: every year, thousands of new watches are presented at the trade shows… how many variations on telling the time can anyone make and the market absorb? The fact is, our fantasy is endless, and there will be more new watches developed every single year from now into the future, and this is the way it has been since the 16th century. Can you imagine that they also had trade shows for clocks and watches even back then? It seems nothing has really changed in the watch industry for more than half a millennium.
The RM 004 one of the most complicated timepieces ever released
Modern watchmaking is said to demand the disrupting of rules and familiarities of past design to allow new developments to be made. How do you ensure Richard Mille is also grounded in the deep-rooted heritage of fine watch craftsmanship while creating such futuristic watches?
It is guaranteed because we have the greatest respect for the craftsmanship of the past. The fact that we break and challenge traditional thinking and ideas does not preclude our respect for the traditions that are at the heart of creating timepieces with the highest standards of quality and workmanship. For instance, you can use a new material like high-tech ceramic, as we do in several of our models, and finish it exactly the same way you treat gold or platinum, with highly polished edges, polished screw sinks and brushed surfaces.
The philosophy about extending our knowledge of materials outside the usual does not change the way we define quality based on traditional concepts. We certainly are the brand that has the best hand-finished level by far; this is why I love to say that the brand has one foot in the 19th century and another in the 21st.
Working at Matra (Mécanique Aviation TRAction) seems to have been your first introduction to materials traditionally only used in aeronautics and cars, and you are known for using some of the rarest materials and the most difficult to use. What triggered the idea for you to use them in watches?
I see you have done your homework well. Matra was a typical company of its time that almost no longer really exists in Europe: a kind of mega-industrial entity, like we still find in Japan, able to make everything from watches to cars, transport systems, computers, parts for satellites and aircraft and everything or anything in between.
I am by nature very curious, and although I dealt with watches at Matra, I was able to talk with everyone in many different departments and feed my fantasy. I learnt a lot about how people worked with research and development of new projects, how they overcame problems, how they planned and how they implemented new ideas.
A Richard Mille watch being made five centimetres from the eye of the watch maker
You seem to like creating superlatives such as the world’s lightest watch; what is it about breaking boundaries that you like so much, and what is the next boundary for you to break?
I want to point out that we don’t “go for records” to break them. These light watches were originally created at the request of users like the F1 driver Felipe Massa, the tennis player Rafael Nadal and the golfing genius Bubba Watson. Many of our ideas are driven by our desire to create timepieces that please clients, and they are born through the interaction of collaboration and time spent together.
Actually it was Felipe who started me off on lightness as he challenged me to make a watch that was so light that he would not notice it on his wrist during the races. (Yes, he really wears his watch on the track!) Rafa and Bubba brought the challenge a step further by asking us to make the watch able to withstand the extreme shocks undergone during championship games.
What is it that you enjoy most about the watch world, and what did it mean to you when Richard Mille the Maison was admitted into the prestigious Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie?
I love challenges, because they keep me from getting bored. And believe me, the watch business, when you are in it, is a hard business, politically and emotionally. So, there is always something going on. It was an honour and also a recognition from the horological world to be part of the FHH. A lot of people in the beginning said what I was doing would never work.
by Livia Feltham
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