The youngest house we carry by a century and a half, and the one that argued a watch should be built like a racing car rather than a piece of jewellery.
Richard Mille spent his career in the watch industry before putting his name on anything — most of it running the watch side of the jeweller Mauboussin. In 2001 he founded his own company with Dominique Guenat, whose family firm ProArt made cases in Les Breuleux, in the Franches-Montagnes. The brand is still based there.
The first watch was the RM 001 Tourbillon, shown at Baselworld in 2001. It arrived at a price that startled a trade used to thinking a new name had to earn its way up, and it made the argument the brand has made ever since: that the interesting thing about a watch is the engineering, and the engineering should be visible. The case is a three-part barrel shape, curved to the wrist and bolted rather than pressed together. The movement is skeletonised not for decoration but because there is nothing to hide behind.
The materials come from motorsport and aerospace rather than from jewellery — grade 5 titanium, Carbon TPT, and graphene. The proof most people know is Rafael Nadal's. In 2013 the RM 27-01 was made for him to actually play in: 18.83 grams on the wrist, strap included, taking the shock of a professional serve for a full match. Between 2001 and 2017 the company sold about thirty-two thousand watches in total — roughly what a large Swiss house makes in a month.
We carry Richard Mille to order.
See the Richard Mille we carry