Top 22 Facts About Richard Mille – Interesting Things to Know
There are luxury watches and there are luxury watches. Richard Mille is the latter. Richard Mille takes exclusivity and fine watchmaking to a completely new level and has been able to build a successful name for itself despite being a relatively young brand. At least if you compare it to the competitors that are hundreds of years old.
Richard Mille focuses on ultra-luxury Haute Horlogerie timepieces that stand out from the ordinary. The company’s motto “a racing machine on the wrist” reflects the extreme complexity of its timepieces. Richard Mille is known for pushing boundaries and developing the most advanced, incredible timepieces.
Tourbillon complications, ultra-light timepieces, ultra-thin timepieces, and watches with extremely complex complications signify Richard Mille as a brand. Richard Mille timepieces are priced in the 6-figure range and are therefore a completely different segment of luxury watches, perceived as more exclusive than some of the most iconic luxury watch brands.
The brand combines innovation and the latest technology with requisite watchmaking and hand-finishing, making timepieces to an extremely high standard.
But what is Richard Mille all about? If you’re looking to learn more about Richard Mille, the history, and its watches, you have come to the right place. In this article, we are taking a closer look at some of the most interesting facts about Richard Mille.
Top interesting facts about Richard Mille
1. The first Richard Mille was released in 2001
Richard Mille released its first timepiece in the year 2001, known as the RM 001 Tourbillon. Due to the exclusivity and complexity of these timepieces, the company only released an initial series of 17 timepieces. Since then, a lot has happened and Richard Mille has released numerous models and scaled up its production considerably.
The second timepiece from Richard Mille was the Tourbillon RM 002 which was basically an upgrade of the RM 001, featuring a movement baseplate in titanium and a function indicator with winding, neutral and hand-setting positions. To get started with his first watch, Richard Mille received help from several well-known Swiss watch manufacturers, but more on this later.
The RM 001 had a price tag of €159,000 yet it still sold out just minutes after its release.
2. Richard Mille launched its first ladies watch in 2005
Four years after its start, it was time for Richard Mille to release its first ladies’ watch. With their iconic tonneau shapes, one may think that these watches wouldn’t appeal to women, but they were very successful. Since then, ladies’ watches have become a cornerstone in Richard Mille’s watchmaking and they have since released many watches for women.
The first ladies’ watch was the RM 007, an automatic timepiece limited to 25 pieces.
3. The first in-house caliber was the CRMA1
As the company has grown and evolved, more and more of the company’s production has moved in-house. The first in-house movement from Richard Mille was the CRMA1 caliber which was presented in the RM 037. This new movement featured many new innovations upon its launch, including the function selector, the variable-geometry rotor, and the use of titanium parts in its construction.
4. Richard Mille opened up its first boutique in Hong Kong in 2005
The company was growing steadily just a few years after it was founded and in 2005, Richard Mille opened up its first boutique. The boutique was opened in Hong Kong, a business hub and home to huge watch culture. With the company’s popularity in Asia, it made sense for the first store to be opened in Hong Kong.
5. Richard Mille is the youngest luxury watch brand in the industry
By this time, the company was growing which gave Richard Mille the opportunity to develop more timepieces and invest more into research and development. This led to many new watches including the company’s first dive watch. Richard Mille was always known for highly complicated racing machines so to see a tool watch in the form of a dive watch from Richard Mille was something completely new and slightly unexpected.
This year, Richard Mille also released the first watch with a round case, the RM 025 Tourbillon Chronograph.
7. Richard Mille has created over 80 models over 20 years
It’s safe to say that Richard Mille has come a long way since it started. And in a very short period of time if you see it from a luxury watch industry perspective.
Just 20 years after it was founded, Richard Mille has many worlds-firsts to its name, is responsible for countless innovations and inventions, and has created more than 80 models.
8. Richard Mille moved much of its production in-house in 2013
An important year for the company was 2013 when Richard Mille opened its components unit. This allowed Richard Mille, together with its technical and design expertise, to get access to crucial and valuable tools to ” bring our calibers to life, machining them internally and testing them to our own standards.”
Today, Richard Mille has an in-house construction rate of 80%, meaning that 80% of each watch is made in-house. And this number continues to increase as Richard Mille sharpens its expertise and continues to develop its manufacturing.
9. Richard Mille has strict quality controls
To create top-tier luxury watches in the 6-figure price range, you may not make any compromises. This is why Richard Mille has strict quality controls to ensure every single timepiece that leaves the factory. The mechanical Richard Mille watches go through up to 50 or 60 different processes to ensure that it is up to par and as perfect as they possibly can be.
According to Richard Mille, many of the parts are rejected throughout the different steps of quality control. Richard Mille has stated that they have a rejection rate of between 30 and 40%. This may mean things as small as microscopic hairlines caused by watchmakers’ tweezers. Richard Mille only satisfies with absolute perfection, and that is also the reason why the brand has been able to build the reputation that it has.
10. Richard Mille has a highly limited production
When you have such strict quality controls and create extremely complex timepieces with the most advanced complications, it comes as no surprise that Richard Mille’s production is low. Creating a timepiece takes a long time and its production is limited by the exceptional attention to detail that each timepiece requires.
As a result, Richard Mille produces only about 5,000 or fewer timepieces per year. Moreover, the demand is far higher than the supply, which has further boosted the exclusivity of the brand’s timepieces as they are so difficult to get a hold of.
On average, Richard Mille’s production has grown 15% per year since the company was founded and it has produced a total of 32,000 timepieces between 2001 and 2017.
11. Richard Mille watches can cost several million
The entry price for a Richard Mille timepiece is in the six-figure range, which is in itself a price tag that certainly stands out on the watch market, even amongst luxury watch brands.
But Richard Mille’s timepieces can go even higher than that, up to several million. For example, the Richard Mille 56-02 sapphire tourbillon was manufactured in a limited series of 10 pieces and had a price tag of $2.2 million. But due to its extremely limited nature, the price on the secondhand market is even higher than that.
12. Richard Mille created his own brand at the age of 50 years old
Richard Mille is not just the name of the company but also the name of the founder. Richard Mille founded the company when he was age 50. This is a feat in itself considering that the founders of some of the most iconic watch brands were in their 20s or 30s when they started their companies. Sometimes even younger than that.
Richard Mille had dreamt of creating a watch brand using the expertise and knowledge that he had acquired throughout the years. And he decided to create Richard Mille with the idea of pushing watchmaking beyond anything that had existed at the time. He would pay no regard to production costs and focus on making the most complicated and innovative wristwatches. This led to the creation of the Richard Mille brand.
13. Richard Mille has produced ultra-light timepieces
Richard Mille is known for pushing boundaries and one such boundary is lightness. The brand is known for having created some of the lightest timepieces ever created.
In 2004, Richard Mille created the RM 006 Felipe Massa Tourbillon which had a weight of only 48 grams without the strap. In 2005, Richard Mille upgraded the model and created the RM 009 Felipe Massa Tourbillon which set a world record of only 29 grams excluding the strap.
Three years later, Richard Mille reduced the weight to 20 grams by releasing the RM 027 Rafael Nadal, which also included the strap weight. The movement of this timepiece is made from titanium and LITAL which is a lithium alloy that is commonly used in aeronautics.
Richard Mille broke the record once more in 2013 by releasing the manually wound RM 27-01 Rafael Nadal Tourbillon which had the impossible weight of just 18.83 grams including the strap. It holds the record for the lightest tourbillon ever made. This was made possible thanks to the use of lithium aluminum for the movement and carbon nanotube case.
Another important launch was the RM 50.03 McLaren F1 which achieved the record of the world’s lightest flyback chronograph, with a weight of just 38 grams including the strap. The watch was presented in 2017.
14. Richard Mille is a leader in shock-resistance
Lightness is not the only boundary that Richard Mille pushes. Richard Mille has also created numerous timepieces with exceptional shock resistance. Richard Mille created the RM 27-03 Tourbillon which is able to withstand impacts of 10,000 g which is made possible thanks to its skeletonized unibody baseplate built from Carbon TPT®.
15. Richard Mille created the most accurate mechanical wristwatch ever created
With the launch of the RM 031, Richard Mille created the world’s most accurate mechanical wristwatch. The watch beats with a frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour and has an accuracy of +/- 20 seconds per month which is the most accurate mechanical wristwatch ever created. The watch was limited to just 10 pieces.
16. A close relationship with Audemars Piguet
Richard Mille has a close relationship with Audemars Piguet. The history of the company goes back to 1974 when Richard Mile started his career in the watchmaking industry. In the early 1990s, he became the managing director and shareholder of the watch division of renowned French jewelry firm Mauboussin. During this time, Richard Mille met Giulio Papi who is known as one of the most talented watchmakers of our time, and the Director of Research and Development at Audemars Piguet Renaud et Papi (APR&P), which is Audemars Piguet’s high-end watchmaking division.
When Richard Mille launched his project, Audemars Piguet joined as a minority shareholder. Since the beginning of the Richard Mille company, Audemars Piguet Renaud et Papi was a technology partner to help Richard Mille develop the most complicated movements in the Richard Mille collection, including complications such as tourbillons and split seconds chronographs.
17. Richard Mille received an offer for the company but it was rejected
In 2013, Richard Mille received an offer for the company to be acquired. The French luxury group Kering proposed an acquisition of 51% of the shares but their offer was requested and still to this day, the company remains independent.
18. Richard Mille hand-finishes a lot of the parts by hand
It doesn’t come as a surprise that a top-tier luxury watch brand does things a lot differently from most of its competitors. The level of detail that Richard Mille puts into its manufacturing is on a different level. Therefore, Richard Mille hand-finishes many of the watch parts by hand. This includes even the smallest, most intricate components such as screws, tourbillon cages, springs, hands, and bridges.
As you can imagine, with a brand like Richard Mille that discards components with even just the slightest errors or flaws, the hand-finishing of components is a tedious process that is ultimately reflected in the price tags of the watches.
19. Richard Mille has many well-known ambassadors
Over the years, Richard Mille has signed numerous famous and well-known ambassadors. Naturally, these individuals have been in fields from which Richard Mille seeks their inspiration. This is particularly true for motorsports, and especially Formula 1.
Amongst others, some of Richard Mille’s ambassadors include Felipe Massa, Rafael Nadal, Bubba Watson, and more. The ambassadors are also a part of the development process of new timepieces. This allows Richard Mille to test their watches “in the field” and ensure that they can withstand the situations in which they are meant to be worn. This, for example, includes real-life crash tests, for example when Bubba Swings his golf club, when Rafael Nadal hits his tennis racquet, or when a Formula 1 driver is exposed to extreme g-forces and vibrations when racing.
Instead of just writing them a check, Richard Mille handles the ambassador relationships differently from most other companies and involves them in the design process. Only the athletes know how it truly is to be out in the field and their expertise and knowledge are valuable for Richard Mille when they are designing their watches for the conditions that they operate in. All of this information helps Richard Mille develop and create extremely durable timepieces that can stand up to the tests.
20. Richard Mille has many world-first in the watch industry
As discussed briefly earlier, Richard Mille is responsible for many world-firsts in the watch industry. This includes things like lightness and durability but also other aspects. When you continue to push boundaries the way Richard Mille does, it will eventually lead to the invention of new technology.
One such example is the RM 002 Tourbillon which features a titanium movement baseplate with a torque and function indicator. Later, in 2005, Richard Mille created a carbon nanofiber baseplate for the RM 003-V2, RM004-V2, and RM 008-V2. All of these were world-firsts that were the result of Richard Mille pushing boundaries and questioning whether things need to be done the way they have always been done.
21. Richard Mille created the world’s thinnest watch in 2022
In March 2022, Bulgari released the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra, measuring 1.80mm in thickness, making it the thinnest watch ever made. Just a few months later, in July, Richard Mille knocked Bulgari from the top spot by making the the RM UP-01 Ferrari with a thickness of only 1.75mm. To make this possible, Richard Mille assembled the entire movement which is just 1.18mm thick into the case instead of using a baseplate.
22. The sapphire case is Richard Mille’s most complicated watch case
As such, the Richard Mille watches with sapphire cases are amongst the company’s most expensive timepieces.
Creating the sapphire case structure took Richard Mille several years of research and development. Several watch brands have created sapphire cases but only Richard Mille has created such a complex case design in sapphire that the RM case involves. Everything is crafted from a single block of crystal and no polymers are used to machine the difficult lines or angles.
The sapphire has a growth time of more than 12 weeks in Switzerland and each block requires more than 1,000 hours of machining to finally have the correct shape and lines. To create the signature curved design, Richard Mille uses a multi-axis machine.
