Tenacity makes Richard Mille tick

Timepieces undergo intensive aesthetic checking as well as rigorous testing. — Photos: Richard Mille

FOR a watch brand that has existed for less than two and a half decades to rise to the ranks of century-old industry heavyweights like Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet is nothing short of remarkable.

To do so with a conservative production of fewer than 6,000 pieces a year and an average price point of CHF290,000 (US$356,000) is even more impressive.

Yet Richard Mille has accomplished just that. According to Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult’s annual Swiss luxury watch report, the watchmaker is listed as the industry’s sixthhighest watch brand in terms of sales.

In a short time, the brand has amassed a cult-like following, its pieces seen on the wrists of high profile celebrities, athletes and ultra-wealthy watch enthusiasts, as well as collaborations featuring figures like Rafael Nadal and Pharrell Williams.

According to the brand, its success can be attributed to three core elements: cutting-edge technological innovation, highly imaginative artistic and architectural design and exceptional resistance and ergonomics.

“There’s no ‘typical’ Richard Mille watch, because they are all wildly different,” Alexandre Mille, brand director and son of founder Richard Mille, told journalists at a press launch last month. “We don’t listen to trends at all, but rather, we listen to ourselves and focus on what we want to express in a watch.”

On a tour through Richard Mille’s manufacture in Les Breuleux, Switzerland, StarBiz 7 was given an up-close look at the intricate processes, skilled craftsmanship and exacting standards that make the brand’s boundary-pushing timepieces possible.

Nestled within the mountainous Swiss Jura landscape, the brand’s operations and production are distributed across a set of facilities in Les Breuleux: Guenat S.A Montres Valgine (GMV), Horométrie S.A, and ProArt I and II. Within these premises, Richard Mille watches are ideated, developed, manufactured, assembled, tested and prepared for distribution by its 245 employees.

With its commitment to reaching new technical heights and charting novel territory in horology, the brand places heavy emphasis on research and development. A 36-person team of designers and engineers at the manufacture works to conceptualise and create new movements and cases.

Inspired by the technical engineering found in the world of high speed car racing, Richard Mille has led the way in introducing new, unconventional materials such as Carbon TPT® and graphene to the watchmaking industry, expanding possibilities for advanced chronometric performance.

The brand has developed 15 in-house movements, which make up 55% of its production. The remaining 45% of movements are sourced from its suppliers, Manufacture Vaucher and APLL.

Suppliers and partners are chosen by the brand for their production capacity and ability to provide the highest levels of quality.

Maxime Guenat, the brand’s general director and son of Richard Mille founder Dominique Guenat, notes that the current luxury watch industry downturn has led to concerns about suppliers being at risk of shuttering and their specialist know-how becoming lost.

“We try to help them as much as possible, for example by giving orders 18 months in advance, allowing them to deliver early if they have cash issues. They know they can come to us if they have problems and we’ll find a solution together,” he adds.

At the manufacture, once a model’s concept is formulated, the production process starts with the machining of case and movement components such as baseplates, bridges, screws and wheels.

One revelation gleaned from observing the production of Richard Mille watches is the crucial role of human expertise in every facet of the process.

Within the components unit, machines are manually set up and calibrated for each phase, while the specialised cutting tools in the machines are often made by hand to tolerances of a few microns.

Parts such as screws, bridges, and springs are also retouched, finished and decorated by hand. The polishing of watch components is a particularly complex task, requiring specialists with significant experience and dexterity to employ different techniques as they see fit to each individual piece.

To ensure the brand’s top tier standards of excellence and consistency, quality control is a hallmark of every stage of production.

Given the signature skeletonised, open architecture of Richard Mille timepieces, each miniscule component has to be precisely made and free from the slightest scratch. Watches undergo intensive aesthetic assessments, as well as rigorous testing including shock tests, drop tests, and aging tests.

As a result of the stringent quality requirements, watches may be sent back and forth between departments up to seven times before it passes muster.

At the assembly stage, watches are painstakingly put together by watchmakers by hand.

Notably, a tourbillion watch, which requires an extraordinary level of expertise and mastery, is handled from start to completion by a single watchmaker – a process averaging three months per timepiece.

This unrelenting pursuit of technical excellence, creativity and craftsmanship has played a role in Richard Mille’s highly limited production quantities. The brand produced just 5,600 watches in 2023, and 5,900 in 2024.

Alexandre says there will likely not be an increase in production volume for “some years”, until the business has the capacity to do so without sacrificing quality.

“We do want to make the number higher because the demand is high, but only if it can be done the proper way,” he says.

Underscoring the brand’s long-held “no-compromise” ethos, he adds that the development of new models is not governed by limits on capital expenditure or product delivery timelines.

“Our founders both come from the watch industry and have lived through the frustration of dealing with corporate constraints. When you have a budget, deadline, or price target, that’s when you start to compromise, and they don’t want that.”