From the F1 podium to Capella: The Mille family on sport, design and a global spotlight

Lifestyle

Thousands of fans packed into Yas Marina for the final F1 race of the season. Millions more watched from home. Photographers were stacked three deep along the fence as Lando Norris claimed his first world championship. Front and centre in almost every celebration shot was the detail on his wrist, the kind of product placement advertisers can only dream of – his Richard Mille.

Tucked downstairs in the heritage-listed Capella Sydney, where Australia’s first Richard Mille boutique has just opened its doors, Amanda Mille sits surrounded by glass cases that hold only three watches. Each is impossibly light, priced in six or seven figures, and built to withstand more punishment than their owners ever will.

With a grin from ear-to-ear she tells the story of how it all began. Her father, Richard Mille, was working in the industry when frustration took over. “He faced boards that were refusing what he thought was a good idea,” she says. “He built this frustration and ultimately decided to launch his own project where there would be absolutely no compromise.”

What happened next became folklore in the industry. Mille would head to watch conventions and hurl his watch to the ground to prove it wouldn’t break. In the two decades that followed, that act of rebellion formed the foundation of the brand’s biggest partnerships in professional sport.

The Sydney boutique – the 42nd in the world – is deliberately understated and blocks away from its competitors on King Street.

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After a quick tour, a sea of watch journalists moved upstairs to Brasserie 1930 for lunch, where all but one chair was filled. It belonged to the fastest sprinter in cycling history, Sir Mark Cavendish – aka the “Manx Missile”. Recently retired, Cavendish holds 35 Tour de France stage wins, more than any rider in history. There’s a nice irony in the fastest man in the sport being the slowest to arrive at lunch, for a watch event no less.

A keen watch collector already, Cavendish first met Richard Mille through a letter. After winning the world championship in 2011, he received a coffee-table book and a note from Richard himself. Years later, they’d meet in person.

Mark Cavendish, portrait during the Acropolis Rally Greece 2024, 10th round of the 2024 WRC World Rally Car Championship, from September 1 to 4, 2024 at Lamia, Greece – Photo André Ferreira / DPPI

“I was on the team bus and someone said, ‘Richard wants to meet you.’ I looked out and saw him standing there and thought, no way. It was so unexpected. And from that moment, it was like we’d known each other forever. He said, ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and took it off his wrist. It was an RM 11-03 Felipe Massa – named for the first driver ever to wear a Richard Mille on an F1 track.

Amanda is quick to point out the significance of the brand’s partnerships (not ambassadorships) with high-performance athletes. Cavendish in cycling, Charles LeClerc, Lando Norris, Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean in F1, Rafael Nadal in tennis, Bubba Watson and Diana Luna in golf. The list goes on.

“All these people – they have the same values as my dad and the brand. Resilience. They’ve all worked really hard to get where they are. It’s not only about working with them; it’s about learning from them too,” she says. “Not everyone just gets to wear a Richard Mille.”

Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren lifts his trophy on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi wearing his RM. Image: Getty

Massa’s partnership began in 2004, when Richard asked him to test a prototype during Formula One races. The RM006, the brand’s first carbon-baseplate watch, was a prototype designed to survive the violent G-forces of Formula 1. A few years later, after a crash, Massa called Richard in panic to say the watch had stopped working – a nightmare for a new brand trying to make a name as one of the most robust in haute horologie.

Mille asked one question: “Did you wind it?” It hadn’t broken at all, Amanda laughs.

A few years later came the brand’s most famous test case: Rafael Nadal.

Rafael Nadal wearing the Richard Mille RM 27-05 Flying Tourbillon

“At the beginning, Rafa was like, ‘No way, I cannot play with a watch on my wrist,’” Amanda recalled. “He really didn’t want to.” The brand built him one anyway. The RM 027 was engineered from titanium and LITAL alloy, weighing just 20 grams with the strap – lighter than a ball of string. Nadal wore it to win Roland Garros, and has done so every year since.

“We need to have the watch being tested in reality, in real life, with people who are pushing the limits,” Amanda said. “That’s the only way to make it better.”

Today, the brand’s network of partners spans from track to court to film set.

HBO’s award-winning show Succession features some of horologie’s most sought-after timepieces across its four seasons, so when Jeremy Strong – AKA Kendall Roy – reached out to Amanda directly, they jumped on a two-hour Zoom call to make it work, eventually landing on an RM67-01. Strong has since gone on to wear several more RM watches.

Forever Dreaming

Inside the Mille family, the process hasn’t changed much since Richard threw that first prototype at the ground. “There’s not a dedicated process,” Amanda’s brother Alex Mille said. “Every good idea can become a watch.” It can take four to ten years to go from sketch to production.

The brand’s annual output remains below 6,000 pieces – a deliberate ceiling that keeps creativity intact, he says. “It’s not about quantity, it’s about what we put inside those 6,000.”

Despite that low volume, Richard Mille sits firmly among the top tier of Swiss watchmaking. According to Morgan Stanley’s 2023 industry report, the brand generated around 1.3 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion) in annual sales – placing it inside the top six global watchmakers by revenue. The average price of a Richard Mille sits around US$250,000, though many pieces sell for far more.

Distribution follows the same logic: even split across the Americas, EMEA, Asia, and Japan. Australia now sits within the Asia-Pacific region, led by Bryan Tan, who joined the Mille family business through his father two decades ago.

“We already knew so many collectors in Australia,” Tan said. “We kept seeing them at car events with McLaren and Ferrari. It made sense to open here.”

“We’re lucky enough to make something that people who have everything still dream about,” Amanda Mille said.