Meet Richard Mille, the creator of an unapologetically original, hyper-modern timepiece that understands the demands of the future.
BY CAROLINE SUGANDA – T SINGAPORE
Richard Mille’s passion for watchmaking has always been propelled by his obsessions with mechanical devices, such as cars. The synergy between the two has been palpable and evidently, Mille said that he has always created his watches in the same way that an F1 team builds a race car. The chassis (or frame) of racing cars, created as a single unit, was the inspiration for his timepieces that employ unibody construction. He also set out to apply the same precision and cutting-edge technology employed by the best race teams in the world. The resultant product is clearly an unapologetically original, hyper-modern timepiece that understands the demands of the future.
According to an article by The New York Times, Richard Mille is one of the most successful independent watch brands, single-handedly reinventing watchmaking in the 21st century. The company is only 19 years young, a far cry from the other brands with over 100 years of expertise and heritage. But as it turns out, it was not difficult to carve out a brand with zero heritage. “It was challenging, but not difficult,” Mille said. The market then was “self-contemplating” and “boring”. The watchmakers had a very clear concept of what they want to do, but again and again presented the same speech, the same story dating back to their beginnings in the 18th or 19th century. “But for me, it was inconsistent. Everyone is using modern tools and I thought to myself, instead of perusing them to make traditional watches, let’s do a modern, contemporary watch,” said Mille, who saw this gap in the industry as an avenue of opportunity to introduce his creations.
The vision of the now-iconic tonneau shape watch crossed Mille’s mind in the middle of the night, a vision that led him to spontaneously carve out its shape from a bar of soap. In 1999, he brought with him a prototype of RM 001 to the international watch fair Baselworld to share with other watch enthusiasts.
The RM 001 is a landmark for what’s to come for the brand. The timepiece, single-handedly, surpassed the traditional code of high-end watches: never-before- achieved level of shock resistance; ergonomic comfort, and a record-breaking lightest mechanical watch ever made. With no proper booth or presentation materials, Mille’s RM 001 nevertheless gained a lot of traction and interest.