The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Fit for purpose, built to perform
It’s not just sports stars who need to demonstrate peak performance when competing, says Simon de Burton
Richard Mille launched his eponymous watch brand in 1999, with the aim of making – in his words – “a watch that was engineered in a comparable way to a Formula 1 car and with a high-performance, highly shock-resistant movement. It had to have an ergonomically designed case, an open dial which showed the mechanism, and feature only useful functions. It also had to be a watch that could be worn every day. And the cost would be irrelevant.”
Fast forward 20 years and Richard Mille watches costing hundreds of thousands of pounds are not only renowned as the prized possessions of the ultra-rich, but also for ending up in stressful situations that lesser brands might regard as fair cause to invalidate a warranty. To wit, Mille deliberately seeks out members of the world’s sporting elite and invites them to become brand ambassadors on the unusual condition that they always wear their Richard Mille watches while competing.
Hence, when you see Rafael Nadal slamming a 120mph ball towards his opponent he’ll be wearing his £700,000 RM 27-03 Tourbillon. If you’re watching golfer Bubba Watson hitting one of his epic, 300m drives, chances are he’ll be sporting his RM-38 01 – complete with gsensor – on his wrist. And F1 star Kimi Räikkönen? As he climbs into the cockpit of his Alfa Romeo C38, he is more than likely to be accompanied by an RM 50-04 Split-Seconds Chronograph, worth just south of £1m. Mille, you see, delights in proving to the world that his products are expensive for a reason – because they are fit for purpose and built to last.
This was dramatically demonstrated in 2009 when Brazilian driver Felipe Massa collided with a tyre wall at high speed during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after a suspension component flew off another car and struck him in the head. The massive impact caused serious injuries (from which Massa thankfully recovered) – but appeared to have no effect whatsoever on his Richard Mille RM 005.
Such public exhibitions of resilience make for marketing gold, and Mille seems to have an uncanny knack for choosing just the right wrists to adorn in order to create impactful billboards for his products.
That knack was again demonstrated at the recent World Athletics Championships in Doha. Sprinters Akani Simbine and Yohan Blake, heptathlete Nafissatou Thiam and high jumpers Yuliya Levchenko and Mutaz Essa Barshim – the latter the first man to win back-to-back high jump golds in the World Championships – all competed while wearing their Richard Mille watches.
The undoubted star of the trio proved to be Qatar-born Barshim who, on home turf in the packed Khalifa International Stadium, cleared 2.37m to take gold in a remarkable demonstration of triumph over adversity that proved he had overcome a crippling ankle injury sustained while jumping in Hungary 15 months ago.
Speaking to Telegraph Time the day after his victory, the “pride of Qatar” revealed taking gold was the biggest achievement of his career. “The injury I sustained last year was really serious, and when I finally got back into training I would often find myself in pain again a week later and have to return to the doctor,” he explains. “Doha was always the target for me. People said it would be too much, too soon. I didn’t even come close to jumping 2.37 in training,” he admits. “But the packed stadium with everyone cheering me on definitely helped.”
Barshim began working with Richard Mille in 2016 and his own watch – a special version of the RM 67-02, the brand’s lightest model – was launched the following year. “When Richard [Mille] first said he wanted me to jump with a watch on my wrist, I thought ‘no way’ because I assumed it would be heavy and get in my way. But then he produced the RM 67-02 and I was amazed,” says Barshim. “It’s so light and so comfortable, you don’t know it’s there.
“It is made in the purple colour of my country flag and carries my signature – it makes me happy every time I look at it.” RM 67-02 Automatic Winding Extra Flat Mutaz Barshim, £124,500; richardmille.com
Mille delights in proving to the world that his products are expensive for a reason