The Disruptive World of Early Richard Mille
The Richard Mille mens replica watch brand is an easy one to hate. Their designs are bold, surprisingly expensive, and it's hard to understand what goes into making them — and, furthermore, how such prices are justified. However, those who have followed the brand over the past 19 years will recognize the journey it has been on. Emerging after the turn of the millennium, when the industry relied heavily on its valuable history, Richard Mille emerged, with no pedigree or legendary name to claim. Instead, he proposes an unashamed modernity.
The first few years of any watch manufacture are tough. It's certainly tough trying to break into a century-old industry that's unwilling to change while being new to it. Beyond that, Mille decided to go his own way, doing everything he could to carve out a new horological direction; from utilizing space-age materials to putting his watches on the wrists of athletes as they would compete "in the field", As he said. His bold approach appears to be paying off. In the 19 years since the introduction of the RM 001 hand-wound tourbillon, the brand has cultivated a cult following that sets itself apart.
Richard Mille is still an extremely young brand. It's only just taking its first steps in the context of the wider horological world. However, it has managed to achieve a considerable amount in a very short period of time. That's why we think it's important to take a closer look at how things started. From Eric Ku to Wei Koh, and Theodore Diehl, one of the first employees and the brand's official company spokesperson and watchmaker, we talk to some dedicated collectors as we examine the techniques, materials and Components come from others. We also focus on the destructive attitude taken by the man of the same name himself, who once took great pleasure in throwing his six-figure watch across the room to prove its robustness.Richard Mille RM 007 red gold diamond
A key part of the company and its success are also its collectors, who form a tight-knit community around the pieces. This group of passionate owners has helped propel the brand to where it is today. However, it all comes down to one person. Richard Miller. The enigmatic Frenchman is now leading the brand through its second global financial crash in as many decades, but his passion and creativity have never faltered. Here, we hope to see how it all started, and possibly figure out how Mille did it.
Origin of the brand
The watch industry has never seen anything quite like the 2001 Richard Mille - we mean the brand, the RM 001 really changed everything. However, he himself has been working in the watch industry for over 30 years. Having held different management positions in different companies, he knows the ins and outs of the industry and the market like the back of his hand.discount replica watch
However, timepieces were not Mille's first love. In fact, he waited five years to start his own label. Before that, he was primarily obsessed with mechanics, more specifically cars and airplanes. He is said to be so enamored with sports cars that he bought his first one before even receiving his first paycheck. It was a Renault Alpine, in case you were wondering. According to Theodore Diehl, one of the brand's earliest employees and now its official face, Mille would read the Concorde's instruction manual as a bedtime read, purely for the enjoyment of learning about supersonic speeds How planes fly is fun. It is this deep passion for mechanical ingenuity that has driven Miller throughout his career to explore how to push the norm to achieve the unprecedented.
The guy who started it all.
In her last job before launching her own label, Mille headed up the watches and jewelry department of Parisian jeweler Mauboussin. He launched their own line of branded watches in the early 1990s in a style very different from that of Richard Mille. The design is more classic and elegant — fitting for the French jeweler, but unlike anything Mille has gone on to create.Replica Franck Muller Watches
After several years in Mauboussin's watchmaking department, Mille was ready for a new challenge, an environment in which he could translate his uncompromising attitude into something completely new. In 1999, he founded Richard Mille. Although he didn't do it himself. As Diehl tells us, "He followed the classic Swiss tradition in the sense of building partnerships. What's new is that he doesn't hide them", and opening up the world behind the scenes is an indulgence that many brands avoid. .
Traditionally, Swiss watchmaking has relied on teams of specialists in different fields, whether it be dials, movements or the screws that hold them together. From the beginning of Swiss watchmaking 400 years ago until the 20th century, all these parts were manufactured by different companies and supplied to the brands before being reworked, finished and assembled. While Mille is committed to using the most modern techniques and materials, he still holds the traditional mindset of making watches through partnerships.
One of the most fruitful and successful of these partnerships was with Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP), a manufacturer of complex movements. Like all great collaborations, it is based on respect, vision and an insatiable desire to create. It's a relationship Mille cultivated in his previous position at Mauboussin, using APRP to help create some of the movements inside the jeweler's watches. Now free to design what he wants, seemingly unfettered by pricing issues, he will work closely with APRP to manufacture movements never seen before.replica Ulysse Nardin Diver
While Mille will be the first to admit that he's not a watchmaker—give him a pair of tweezers and a screwdriver and he won't know where to start—his understanding of how to design a mechanical movement is elusive. confidence. His original sketch for the RM 001 was pretty much what APRP ended up making. The vision in Mille’s head was so clear that he was able to perfectly present it on paper, then push APRP’s engineering minds to translate the idea into a physical timepiece. This is the genius of Mille. Not for his ability to design unique watches, but for making sure they are produced to his specifications, down to the smallest detail.
This isn't the only partnership Mille has forged in the early days of his company. He co-founded it with Dominique Guenat, the two of them who co-founded the Richard Mille Group. It is made up of Horométrie SA, responsible for after-sales service, Guenat SA Montres Valgine, responsible for management, design and product development, ProArt and VDMH, specialized in watch decoration, and Editions Cercle d'Art, based in Paris. Print various paperwork and books dedicated to the brand. While the team now has around 150 employees, it started out with just Mille, Diehl, Guenat and Debbie Gourdon. With Mille providing the drive for ideas and creativity, the rest of the team set out to find ways to make or sell these watches.
According to Diehl, the RM 001 should not be considered a standard production model. "We actually only made 17 of them, and they were more of a pre-series proof of concept than anything else. They were sold to Richard for lacking the function indicators that originally appeared in the RM 002 movement friends and regular customers of Germany, but were never actually available to the general public. Cased in platinum and 5N red gold with leather straps, these limited-edition "pre-production" models are Mille's statement of intent for the watch industry. Every detail of his philosophy, and a beacon of where the brand is destined to go. Presenting them at Baselworld 2001 brought him enough attention – some good, some bad – to inspire him to develop the 18th edition of the collection. The watch, which later became the RM 002.Jacob & Co. Epic X Chrono
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