The 2½-hour drive from Geneva to Les Breuleux in northwest Switzerland, where high-end watchmaker Richard Mille’s facilities are located, is pleasant and scenic. Small cottages lining winding roads, snow-capped mountains on the horizon, lovely sights, wide open spaces — everything is brought to life on the clear, sunny day.
Les Breuleux, at more than 1,000m above sea level, is in the serene and unspoilt canton of Jura and home to the maison’s watchmaking facilities Horométrie SA and Guenat SA Montres Valgine.
During a recent visit, this writer was able to note how Richard Mille has managed to position itself at the pinnacle of watchmaking, despite having been around for only 24 years, in stark contrast to other watchmakers, some of which have centuries of tradition behind them.
And the brand has gone from strength to strength, managing to control 3% of Swiss watches’ estimated retail market share, according to the Morgan Stanley LuxeConsult Swiss Luxury Watch Report 2024.
“[There is] no compromise on our part, our capex is huge and there is no limit,” says brand director and son of the founder Alexandre Mille on the brand’s approach to watchmaking. “[Basically] when you have a budget, specific deadline or targeted price, you start to compromise … We don’t want to do that if we want to make the watch we dream of,” he explains.
Two facilities
Richard Mille’s strategy of crafting technical marvels without any trade-offs is evident at Horométrie and Valgine, as its watchmakers construct and build pieces from scratch and put them under vigorous stress tests. The generally sensitive and fragile tourbillon versions are able to withstand punishment and are durable enough to be worn for extreme sports. (Owners are encouraged to wear them for all occasions, even daily, rather than keeping them in a safe.)
While Horométrie produces Richard Mille cases, including the famous tonneau-shaped ones, and components such as baseplates and bridges, which are made with titanium, composites and precious metals, Valgine focuses on making movements, having been in operation for more than a century. (Shareholder Dominique Guenat is the third-generation owner of Valgine.)
See also: Van Cleef & Arpels’ latest watches mark a new chapter in the maison’s love story on a dial
It’s fascinating to observe the intricate watchmaking process — the movement being assembled and put together under a microscope, the titanium cases crafted and polished by hand, the construction of the baseplates and so on, followed by traumatic stress tests that involve hammering and dropping. Witnessing a ticker that costs millions being punished so violently, literally being roughed up, is disturbing.
Then again there are F1 drivers who have been involved in huge accidents at high speed and come out of charred vehicles with their Richard Mille intact, without a scratch and working fine.
Most striking is the attention to detail, and with a number of the watches being crafted in skeleton casing, the handiwork is laid bare for all to see. To illustrate this point, the recently launched RM 43-01 is made up of 514 components within a titanium baseplate.
While one may expect the two facilities to be staffed by elderly men — perhaps in their seventies, with grey hair, glasses and leathery wrinkled skin — we notice interns who are barely out of their teens, ready for a career in this field. The employees at both facilities have a spring in their step and walk with purpose. With high levels of passion, they are not hard-pressed or rushed in any way, as that could jeopardise the products’ final quality and precision.
Besides being top-notch in their chosen profession, the artisans at Les Breuleux are also attuned-to-nature, outdoorsy types, and often have picnic lunches in the great outdoors.
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The surroundings of both the facilities make this lifestyle possible, and add to their quality of life. In the late afternoon, when some of us are a little knackered from jetlag and the early drive up to the heart of the Franches-Montagnes, one of the employees offers us apple juice he had pressed in the morning.
“If I had known you were coming, I would have brought some schnapps or Calvados (a French brandy made from apple or pear cider),” he says nonchalantly. Asked further, he adds: “Yes, home-made as well.”
Many of the staff live within 10 minutes of the manufacture and everyone knows each other as well as their families, which adds to the spirit of togetherness. They take great pride in being in the employ of Richard Mille; the sense of camaraderie is evident and the passion for what they do is unmistakable.
Having discovered the inner workings of the brand, one eventually understands the price tags on its wares.
Teaming up with talents and ambassadors, who are all renowned in their respective fields and have attained a considerable amount of fame, is another indication of the company’s target market.
Its partners include F1 drivers Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso and Alain Prost; professional sportscar racer Aurora Straus; golfers Gerry Lester “Bubba” Watson, Cristie Kerr, Diana Luna and Jessica Korda; athletes Akani Simbine and Nafi Thiam; cycling phenomenon Mathieu van der Poel; snowboarding champ Ester Ledecká; mountain climber Charles Dubouloz; footballer Didier Drogba; tennis great Rafael Nadal; actors Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh and John Malkovich; and producer and singer Pharrell Williams.
As Alexandre puts it, “these are not people you can go to and simply say, ‘Hey wear this watch’”, as they have to believe in the brand and share the same values.
Quality first
Alexandre explains the philosophy anchoring the house: “Our marketing calendar is never dictated by deadline, or any event or whatever. We do it when the watch is ready. We had an issue with the RM 43-01 last year, and made the decision to push back [the launch] to early 2025.”
Richard Mille’s first crossover with Ferrari produced the RM UP-01, among the thinnest watches in the world at 1.75mm. Work on the movement commenced five years prior to its release in July 2022, according to Alexandre.
The RM UP-01 went through more than 6,000 hours of development and laboratory testing, and is crafted out of grade-5 titanium, a highly corrosion-resistant and remarkably rigid alloy (90% titanium, 6% aluminium and 4% vanadium). It can withstand accelerations of over 5,000g in total, despite the strap weighing only 30g.
To create such a slim record-breaker, a function selector was incorporated into the bezel, at between 10 and 11 o’clock, which allows the selection of either the winding or hand-setting function, via the rotation of the crown.
Setting the time or winding the barrel is made possible by turning the second crown located between 7 and 8 o’clock. The RM UP-01, much like the RM 43-01, is limited to 150 pieces and priced at US$1.88 million ($2.44 million) when it was launched.
