In his first book in 2006, Richard Mille unveiled a surprising world in which each individual component of his watches, every single mechanical element, is elevated to the sublime, like a work of art.
Richard Mille’s latest book, published by Cercle d’Art, pays homage to the watchmakers, those artisans and artists of the infinitely small and the ultimately precise; a tribute to the painstaking work of these professionals, who within an industrial framework still manage to dedicate their talent to the birth of a unique timepiece.
"Individus techniques, individus humains".
Since his first watch, the Caliber RM 001 was released, Richard Mille has continued to delve into ever-newer sources of inspiration, exploring inventive and innovative materials in his quest to create watches for the 21st Century. A singular creativity whose boundaries – continually stretched and pushed – are limited only to those of the men giving form to the Richard Mille dream...
For the creation of each new piece forces any watchmaker working for the brand to step back and question himself, re-evaluate and rethink all that he knows, on a daily basis.
New materials, plucked from environments ranging from aerospace to Formula 1, regularly find their way into the hands of watchmakers in this world of infinitesimal dimensions. The manufacturing process, the fashioning and finishing of each piece, is done entirely by hand, with each gesture of infinite precision repeated ceaselessly until absolute perfection is obtained. With every new piece, the learning process changes, a new method must be acquired, bringing new potential pitfalls and hazards resulting in a rate of discard of somewhere along the lines of 30 to 50%. With this parameter looming over watchmakers every day, such is the salary of fear, in a manner of speaking.
Having sublimated the components of the watch, in his first edition, the second opus seeks to focus on the artistry of the watchmakers who fabricate these tiny marvels, the ones who assemble them, polish and perfect them. The photographs by Guy Lucas de Peslouan set the stage, highlighting the work of these men, their surgical precision, their apprehension and anguish in the face of the difficulty of the task.
The text, written by the great philosopher Gilbert Hottois who specialises in the ethics of techno-science, equally pays tribute through its philosophical discourse to these men who take an inventor’s creativity and bring it to life. For in the house of Richard Mille more than anywhere else in the world, modernism and innovation are expressed not through the mechanics of machinery, but through the hands of man.
Release: March 2010 – To be presented at the Salon du Livre de Paris (Paris Book Expo) from 26 to 31 March 2010.
Available for retail sale at all major bookstores, in the Fine Arts section.
Published by Cercle d’Art. 100 €.
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