The Pro Art facility, located in Les Breuleux
its size, it was extremely light. The concave curving case back fits the anatomy of the wrist perfectly and was visually exciting and extremely comfortable to wear. Ever since then I have been fascinated by the Richard Mille approach in creating holistic relationships that unite the interior and exterior of the watch.
“ Casing sounds simple but the reality is that it is a time-consuming and delicate job requiring very complex machining,” explains Theodore Diehl, my guide and the company spokesman at Richard Mille. He showed me samples of watch cases in various stages of completion during my visit.
“ Richard has a fabulous sports car collection and is himself an avid amateur racer,” Diehl continued.“ He draws his inspiration for exotic and / or lightweight raw materials from the world of Formula 1 racing cars, sailing and aviation as inspiration.” Looking through the case samples, I noticed that they had one thing in common: they were indeed all very light for their sizes.
PLANT TOUR“ Let me take you on a plant tour,” Diehl suggested. I willingly obliged. We walked through the machining section where parts were being processed on state-of-the art CNC machines.
This plant has to cope with a number of challenges. For one thing, Richard Mille watch cases are extremely difficult to produce due to the large number of curves and angles they encompass.
2016 | Wristwatch 61