How Richard Mille Takes Quartz Watches to a Surprising Level
WiredFor the team at North Thin Ply Technology, a Lausanne-based manufacturer of high-tech composites for America’s Cup yachts, satellites, F1 cars, and aerospace, abstruse topics like interlaminar fracture toughness, the chemistry of resin matrices, and the elastic modulus of fiber-based materials are meat and drink. But NTPT’s work with Richard Mille, the Swiss watch brand known for engineering and designs as highly evolved as its price points, has taken its R&D team down some divergent innovatory paths, says Olivier Thomassin, the engineer charged with overseeing the Richard Mille collaboration. “It’s led us into investigating a lot of new processes to make patterns and develop new colors, and we’ve spent a lot of time finding ways to bond together unusual materials,” he says. “It’s not the kind of thing a company like this normally does.” There is little in the watch world that resembles Carbon TPT and Quartz TPT, the composites from which NTPT makes cases for Richard Mille.
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