Richard Mille’s first acquaintance with the watch market took place in 1974. In 1999 he founded the company Richard Milleand redefined the concept of luxury timepieces. He soon got to the top thanks to the brands innovative spirit and rather high prices.
Especially regarding materials, Richard Mille never settled with classic ones like gold, stainless steel or titanium; he put great effort in his R&D department to find different materials for watchmaking, and it is obvious that he succeeded.
The brand designed timepieces using a wide range of these exotic materials like carbon, or sapphire, which we used to see only in watch glasses before Richard Mille.
Of course the usage of different materials is not the only reason for Richard Mille’s great success.
Richard Mille is also on top regarding complicated watches. For example, the brand also revisits the tourbillon (in some very exotic ways), which counts as one of the most important milestones in watchmaking history. Thus their innovative soul is not just made up by new materials.
With every model they launch, Richard Mille attracts great attention from all watch lovers.
With their founders experience in marketing and their special/limited timepieces, worn by important people from all around the globe, Richard Mille secures its place in the market, as well as keeps the interest of watch connoisseurs.
The model we got our hands on belongs to the RM – 011 series, which cannot only be recognized immediately by RM fans but by all watch aficionados around the world.
The timepiece is a tribute to Brazilian F1 pilot Felipe Massa and it features stunning technological innovations from top to bottom.
Lets have a look at a few of these developments.
The watch is powered by the reference RM011 in-house movement, which features a flyback chronograph.
The decorations are stunning, for the bridges RM used a so-called wet blasting technique. Further the caliber features an adjustable rotor geometry design, which is positioned in 6 different ways.
A rotor is positioned right at the middle of the caliber with grade 5 titanium screws in order to get the least impact if the watch is exposed to shocks.
The RM011 is equipped with an anti-reflective sapphire glass shaped in a concave form. The glass has a Vickers value of 1800 (!) with its thickness only at 1.2mm.
For those watch lovers who think that watches made out of carbon have lost their momentum, let us talk about this piece’s workmanship.
The assembling process alone requires 8 days of adjustment for the bezel and 5 days for the case back in order to fit perfectly. Then the casting of each case involves 202 completely separate machining operations.
All of Richard Mille’s watches are designed and crafted knowing that their costumers expect the highest quality for the brand’s rather expensive prices. Of course pricing is always a though question regarding the brand, for many their products are way off the charts.
Their RM-011 Felipe Massa Edition however manages to reverse the usual demand supply rules, as the brands founding father managed to make such a highly exclusive and unique brand.
Well, to put it in a nutshell (and of course before I cause despair with watch’s price) let us leave you alone with our photographer, Emre Şişman’s objective.
I would like to express my gratitude to watchwithlove, because of their great support as always.
