| “I feel that my interest in watchmaking possibly began before I was even born,” jokes the 55-year-old Richard Mille, the Brittany-based watchmaker and president of Richard Mille Watches. “It is as though I have been preparing all my life to, one day, become a watchmaker.” Just five years old, an infant by traditional Swiss watch house standards, the brand has already launched pieces that are priced at US$500,000 each.
“I felt it was the right time in my life to do this,” he say. “I observed the industry and noted that people were using modern tools to recreate 19th-century style watches. I thought it would have been much better to buy the real thing from auction houses rather than fork out a vast sum of money for a mere replica. Also, in an industry filled with so many different brands, I found that very few were truly original. Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for the Swiss watch industry, but I knew also that I wanted to open up a new era,” he asserts. “I wanted to create a watch with an enhanced mechanism that is unlike any other, as I am not into copying.
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