Bal Harbour

54 BAL HARBOUR MAY 2023 SPECIAL EDITION Amanda Mille is leading luxury watch nonconformist Richard Mille into its next beautiful rebellion. BY MACKENZIE WAGONER PORTRAIT BY MATHIEU CESAR HIGH TIME N o one is you and that's your power," reads the tat- too on Amanda Mille's forearm, the body part she arg uably looks at most often. As the oldest of watch entrepreneur Richard Mille's seven chil- dren and director of partnerships for the brand, Mille is closely involved in road testing the latest timepieces and introducing them to new and ex- isting clients, including her growing stable of brand partners, from race car driver Lilou Wadoux to tennis champion Rafael Nadal. Over a Zoom call from her home o ce in the south of France, Mille flashes the black-inked phrase on screen, recounting a recent trip to the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. Of the three tattoos Mille had done in Miami, this particular memento can also serve as a re- minder of the underlying ethos of the Mille brand, to anyone who glances at her wrist. Since her father, in 1999, at the age of 50, tried to reinvent the luxury watch market, Richard Mille has never sought to embed itself in the establishment. Their first model, the RM 001 Tourbillion, debuted in 2001 with a titanium and carbon nano-filter design in a barrel-shaped dial, casting aside his Swiss-made com- petitors' constraints of replicating centuries-old models for modern consumers in favor of innovation, performance, and curiosity. In its nascent 24-year histor y, the line of wrist watches have shaped what we believe a timepiece should look like, where we can wear it, and who should have one. Hallmarked by unprecedented durabilit y and mater ia l innovat ions, including feather weight graphene, Richard Mille has upended the luxur y watch market while spotlighting two underserved sectors: sports and women. Rather than of fering models that targeted these audiences, Richard Mille crafted watches with them—most notably women athletes—o"ering a platform and coveted corporate sponsorships. Beyond put ting their face on a product, Richard Mille invites its talent to collaborate on and test-drive new technological advance- ments in a way that machines simply cannot. This is perhaps most notably evidenced in this spring's release of the first women's sports watch, the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport. For this collection, the brand asked six inspiring athletes—Aurora Straus, Margot La te, Nelly Korda, Nafi Thiam, Yuliya Levchenko, and Ester Ledecká—to help develop the attributes of this new model through sharing their indi- vidual athletic experiences. This process has long been part of the brand's DNA: Four years ago, Richard Mille's lightest elastic strap was crafted with a nod to Ledecká's aerodynamic speed on the slopes (see the RM 67-2), while decorated golfer Cristie Kerr can be thanked for the diamond-en- crusted face capable of withstanding her swings (RM 007). In 2019, the brand created the world's first professional all-women's racing team, which transitioned to an all-gender team led by Wadoux. At the start of this year, Wadoux became the first o cial female Ferrari Competizioni GT driver. While Richard Mille no longer maintains a racing team, their support of Wadoux continues. "Three years after the creation of the Richard Mille Racing Team, the marvelous work of the technical teams and drivers allowed us to achieve our objec- tive: to take female drivers to the highest level and win places against the biggest team," says Mille. "Lilou is only at the start of her career, but she is already writing a new page in the history of motor racing by joining Ferrari as an o cial driver in endurance. It was essential to start with an all-female team," says Mille. Despite her involvement now, the oldest Mille sibling thought she would work practically anywhere but for her father's brand. "We didn't grow up thinking that our name brought anything to the com- pany," she says. Instead, her interest in working with people drew her to open Souk, a North African restaurant in London in 1994. But the women's market for Mille was showing its cracks. Compared to other luxury watch brands, in the ladies' segments, "we weren't last, but we weren't far from it," she says. "You have to look at yourself and try to understand what you're doing wrong." In 2014, Mille saw an opportu- nity to marry her hospitality experience with her intimate knowledge of the brand. The solution seemed simple: spend time with women and let the brand's story and innovation sell themselves. "I don't think women realized the brand had so much to o"er them." It would be easy to say she was a natural but, according to Mille, "I have way more to prove than other people working for the brand." Her first sense that her approach was working came when she sold a Amanda Mille, wearing RM 07-01 Starry Night.

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