Lovers of ultra-high-end luxury have been raving about Richard Mille watches for years. The brand makes exclusive timepieces with unique futuristic designs and an extremely high price tag. Although a relatively young Swiss watchmaker, Richard Mille is gradually making its mark in an industry where century-old companies rule.
You might want to look at a Richard Mille watch if you’re looking for unique timepieces characterized by superb craftsmanship, innovation, and quirky, eccentric designs. You’ve probably spotted this watch on the wrists of celebrities, renowned sportsmen, and young A-listers in various fields, confirming the brand’s status as a trendy timepiece with a modern appeal.
As a watch enthusiast interested in Richard Mille watches, you’ll appreciate the hype behind the brand even more when you learn some valuable inside information about the history, design, and production of the watchmaker’s unique timepieces. In this post, we’ll explore some of the most important things to know about Richard Mille Watches.
A Brief History of Richard Mille Watches
The aptly named RM 001 Tourbillon is the first Richard Mille watch. This timepiece hit the market in 2001, meaning the brand has only been in operation for a little over two decades. However, the Richard Mille brand is the brainchild of an industry veteran whose experience goes all the way back to the 1970s.
Richard Mille, the founder of this timepiece brand, started his career in horology in 1994, working for a French watchmaker called Finhor. He rose to a managerial position in this company’s Chronometer division after it was acquired by Matra.
Following a very successful decade-long stint at Finhor, Richard Mille moved on to work with the watch firm Mauboussin, where he was a shareholder. He helped in setting up the jewelry brand’s luxury watch business.
Driven by a desire to push the boundaries of luxury watchmaking and create unique timepieces different from anything that existed at the time, Richard Mille decided to develop his own watchmaking brand. He presented the idea for his company to his friend Dominique Guenat, the owner of the Swiss watchmaking company Montres Valgine, with Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet as a shareholder.
The Richard Mille RM 001 was launched in 2001 after two years of development. It was a truly modern luxurious timepiece with a distinctive tonneau case and torque screws. Despite the quirky appearance of this watch, its elegance was obvious, and soon enough, it launched the Richard Mille brand into the limelight as a leading innovator in the luxury watch industry.
Who Makes Richard Mille Watches?
The number one secret behind the success of any watch manufacturer is its production process. Mechanical watches are made up of several tiny components that must be machined to absolute precision to operate accurately. Achieving this requires a level of knowledge and technical expertise that can only be acquired through years of experience.
This is true for Richard Mille as well. While the company has developed its in-house capabilities to handle most of its production, Richard Mille also relies on a network of partners and suppliers to produce parts of its watches.
Richard Mille’s partnership with Dominique Guenat’s company, Montres Valgine (GMV), has been particularly instrumental to the watchmaker’s production process. This partnership was valuable for the young company because it allowed it to leverage over a century of production experience and technical expertise of the Montres Valgine company. In the early years of its operation, the Swiss-based watch manufacturer handled the production of Richard Mille timepieces in its facility located in the Les Breuleux region in Switzerland.
Design and development, which was a major part of Richard Mille’s production process, were carried out in the watchmaker’s old 1950s building in Les Breuleux. At the same time, the assembly and quality control were performed in a separate building.
By 2013, Richard Mille had already moved up to 80% of its production process in-house. This was made possible by the brand’s acquisition of a 90% stake in Prototypes Artisanals SA (also known as ProArt). With this move, the components of Richard Mille watches, including the case, baseplates, bridges, screens, and wheels, are now produced in ProArt’s purpose-built 3,000 m² facility in Les Breuleux, which belongs to the Richard Mille group.
Despite moving most of its production in-house, Richard Mille still enlists the services of other renowned names in the industry for the production of components for its watches. The company likes to mirror the production principles used by race car manufacturers or aeronautics companies, where many specialists handle different parts and components. This allows them to leverage the experience of these specialists to get the best output.
Guenat SA Montres Valgine continues to handle the conception and assembly of Richard Mille watches. ProArt Manufactures the components, while VMDH (Vital Morel Décalque Horlogère), which is also a part of the Richard Mille group, is in charge of decoration.
Elaborate Design of Richard Mille Watches
When buying a Richard Mille watch, one thing that stands out right away is their bold and unique designs. Even people with limited knowledge of luxury horology can instantly recognize Richard Mille watches because of their distinctive (and very unusual design).
Instead of the typical round or rectangular shape of conventional watches, the Richard Mille brand went for a unique tonneau-shaped casing. The case, which is made up of three curved decks, is incredibly difficult to reproduce, which is part of what makes Richard Mille watches so outstanding. Machining such an intricate case (usually from a single block of material) may take hundreds of operations, requiring several months to complete.
Richard Mille watches also feature skeletonized dials designed to provide a glimpse into the intricate workings of the sophisticated movement that powers the watch. Richard Mille achieves all of these while keeping the timepiece as lightweight and ergonomic as possible to ensure optimal comfort and wearability.
The Quality of Richard Mille Timepieces
Innovative design isn’t the only area where Richard Mille excels. The watchmaker also creates some of the highest quality watches you’ll find in the market today. It took Richard Mille years of research and testing to create watches that would meet the demands of strength and comfort that he wanted his timepieces to embody.
Once perfected, Richard Mille took great pride in demonstrating just how robust these watches are. When questioned about just how robust his tourbillon was, Mille was said to have taken off his watch from his wrist and thrown it across the room just to prove how durable the timepiece was.
The curved decks of Richard Mille watches are designed to fit together to a precision of 100ths of a millimeter. This creates a seal to protect the interior of the watch from moisture and dust. The casing, movement, and other components of Richard Mille watches are handcrafted to precision using the finest materials possible.
Keeping with Richard Mille’s goals of pushing the boundaries of modern watchmaking, the Swiss watchmaker takes inspiration from the automotive industry in the design of its watches and the choice of materials. Richard Mille doesn’t just sponsor motorsports events for the hype and optics. The brand watches are built with the materials used in making Formula 1 cars, Yachts, and even airplanes.
Richard Mille is one of the few watchmakers using unique alloys like TitaCarb (a mix of titanium and carbon) and TPT quartz. To achieve this, the watchmaker invests millions of Swiss Francs in the research and development stage of its production process with the goal of producing ingenious materials to give its timepieces unique physical attributes.
What Is The Average Price Of A Richard Mille Watch?
So, how much does such an intricate piece of Engineering cost? Everyone knows that Richard Mille watches don’t come cheap. This explains why they have been nicknamed the ‘billionaire’s handshake.’The watchmaker prides itself in being an ultra-high-end luxury brand with a price tag that makes it accessible only to exceptionally wealthy individuals.
The average Richard Mille price in the retail market is currently around $200.000, with entry-level Richard Mille watches costing as much as $80,000. In contrast, the most expensive ones are worth millions of dollars. How much you’ll have to pay depends on your preferred model, case material, function, and so on.
Even within the same model, you may find significant price variations due to the choice of material. The rose gold RM 033, for instance, is cheaper than models of the same timepiece made from proprietary materials like carbon.
Despite the overwhelming demand for Richard Mille watches, the watchmaker maintains a sense of exclusivity and drives value by keeping production numbers low. Only about 5,000 Richard Mille timepieces are released every year, several times smaller than the production number of other high-end luxury brands. While the number of each model is already low, Richard Mille still creates limited edition models, further amplifying the reputation of scarcity and exclusivity already associated with the brand.
Conclusion
As a collector or enthusiast interested in Richard Mille watches, there are several things to know about this ultra-luxury watch brand for the super-rich. It takes a long time to understand what a brand truly stands for. However, learning all about what goes on behind the scenes can give you great insights into a brand and guide you in making an informed buying decision. Once you do, you’ll no longer see the timepiece as a mere fashion item but an actual embodiment of the brand’s value and unique identity.
