A Stellar Intergalactic Explosion: Elizabeth Doerr On Richard Mille’s Latest Showstopper
Bazaar’s watch columnist Elizabeth Doerr explores space — and time — with Richard Mille’s new gem-setting techniques
Richard Mille’s timepieces perfectly suit the modern era of luxury with their decidedly technological feel. And this brand’s watches, though they rarely contain much gold, could certainly be described as more precious than gold in value.
Most of this value is created by the high-tech materials developed by Richard Mille and his team, who were inspired by Formula 1 for the watch cases and, in most instances, the forward-thinking movements that power them. Therefore, Richard Mille has always utilised highly technical alloys aimed at knocking a few grams of weight off the watch while retaining all the elements needed for haute horlogerie watchmaking. As light and low-key in appearance as they are, it seems impossible that most of these materials would cost more to use than gold. But they do.
“Normal” precious metals and gemstones aren’t usually the deciding factor in making up the value – or the content – of a Richard Mille watch. These are used, of course, to decorate a watch, but they are never the object of these watches. And never are they used to elevate the value of a watch; the value of a Richard Mille timepiece is in two things alone: the high-tech research and development behind the watch and the resulting appearance and performance.
And now the Richard Mille brand once again brings something unique to watchmaking while staying fully within the confines of how Mr Mille reimagined high watchmaking to suit his vision: the RM 07-01 Intergalactic combines diamonds with a high-tech Carbon TPT case, an unheard-of feat. Carbon TPT’s velvety appearance comes about thanks to the damascene effects and moiré motifs created by the layered, ultra-thin unidirectional strand sheets of carbon fibres used to make the case material. It is unique in the world of watchmaking and it is light, strong, and very pleasant to wear despite a size that may look quite large on paper (31.4 x 45.66 x 11.85 mm). Surprisingly, though, this watch fits every wrist – even quite small ones like mine – and looks proportional thanks to the excellent design.
The brand-new gem-setting technique attests to Richard Mille’s expertise in working with progressive-futuristic, lightweight materials like Carbon TPT. Unlike gold, the soft malleability of which allows the setter to shape prongs to secure diamonds, the hardness and above all brittleness of the Carbon TPT composite means the gem setter is compelled to use diamond-bit milling tools in order to machine settings – once again a high-tech solution to satisfy an artistic vision.
“It all started with the vision of an explosion of stars taking place in the black darkness,” explains Cécile Guenat, the brand’s creative and development director. “We wanted to rethink our approach to gem-setting as a way of bringing the elements together in an intense way.”
This intense way includes diamonds and polished red gold prongs being inserted by hand into the numerous settings of varying diameters. “Using prongs as decorative elements is an aesthetic approach that progressively highlights this explosion of light,” adds Guenat.
Richard Mille offers the resulting RM 07-01 watch in four new glittering variations called Bright Night (228 diamonds, 0.81 ct, 849 red gold prongs), Dark Night (51 diamonds, 0.081 ct, 765 red gold prongs), Misty Night (251 diamonds, 0.81 ct, 1,123 red gold prongs), and Starry Night (181 diamonds, 0.57 ct, 701 red gold prongs). The cases are strikingly accented with 18-karat red gold not only used as prongs to hold the multitude of diamonds in place, but also on the crown, hands, bezel, and in the case of Bright Night the case band.
The Carbon TPT case also guarantees optimal protection for the Richard Mille in-house automatic Calibre CRMA2, a skeletonised automatic movement in grade 5 titanium with a variable-geometry rotor that is mechanically beautiful and technically interesting. The idea behind the variable-geometry rotor is that people each wear a watch differently according to lifestyle. The wrist of someone who is very active will wind an automatic watch much more quickly, but the watch will also spend much of the time continuing to wind the mainspring, thereby adding some wear to the movement. The variable geometry rotor seeks to head this extra wear off at the pass as it can be adjusted to one of three positions by a watchmaker: the inner position is for an active person as it generates less energy, thereby winding a little slower and offsetting the activity of the wearer. Should the owner be less active and not provide as much body movement to keep the watch wound (like someone with a desk job), the outside position generates more energy from the rotor. This is a clever way to account for varying activity levels of owners.
Thinking of the wearer is just one of the reasons that Richard Mille is popular with people who love watches. Another is surely the outstanding technological beauty of the timepieces.
Elizabeth Doerr is the editor-in-chief of QuillAndPad.com, a digital publication that keeps a watch on time.