‘A
nd this is Alain,” says Amanda Mille, the brand and partnerships director at the company her father, Richard, founded. We are in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo to see the unveiling of Richard Mille’s new collaboration with Ferrari. And the Alain who has just been so insouciantly introduced is none other than Alain Prost, racing legend and winner of four Formula 1 world championships.
Between 1990 and 1991 the Frenchman was a Ferrari driver, and this is why he is here today, along with a more recent alumnus of the team’s school, the Brazilian Felipe Massa, who raced for Scuderia Ferrari from 2006 to 2013. Massa also has the distinction of being the first brand partner to sign up with Richard Mille, back in 2004 when the company was a fledgling business making only about 300 watches a year. He talks fondly of how he agreed to wear a watch as a test driver at a time before Richard Mille had any formal budget for such things. The relationship has endured, and Massa always raced wearing a Richard Mille.
The RM 43-01 Tourbillon Split-Seconds Chronograph Ferrari, POA, richardmille.com
The luxury Swiss watchmaker launched in 2001 with the aim of crafting thoroughly modern timepieces. A fan of motors and motor racing, Mille described his supertechnical lightweight designs as being like “a racing machine on the wrist”. His son Alexandre, the company’s commercial director, says, “For my father, this partnership with Ferrari is a dream come true.” Beyond the synergies of quality, technology and innovation that connect the two firms, both are also clearly about passion.
