Chasing Rainbows: Meet Richard Mille’s Most Colourful Creation Scattered With Dazzling Diamonds

Richard Mille’s RM 07-01 Coloured Ceramics Collection Speaks to The Brand’s Skill for Making Impact with High-Octane Hues Adorned with A Dash of Diamonds

Let’s be real – Richard Mille isn’t the kind of watch brand where you see your friend wearing one at brunch and ponder whether you should start squirrelling some spare dirhams to spoil yourself in a few months’ time. Put simply, there are expensive watches that you see on the wrists of Hollywood A-listers wandering around LA, and then there are expensive watches that you see Lauren Sanchez-Bezos and Nita Ambani wearing with their Sunday best. Richard Mille comes under the latter.

If you’re not familiar, then here are the headlines: Richard Mille is the billionaire’s watch brand. Founded at the turn of the millennium by Richard Mille – of Mauboussin pedigree – in partnership with visionary designer Dominique Guenat.

The RM 001 Tourbillon was its debut, and, audaciously adamant on smashing the limits of haute horlogerie like an F1 car through a tyre-wall, the brand established its design codes clearly from the get-go. Sci-fi-esque materials? Check. Elite, radical engineering? Check. A look unlike any other watchmaking maison? You betcha. In brief, Richard Mille immediately established itself as an ultra-performance watchmaking maison intended for a connoisseur customer that feeds off insider ideology; the old ‘if you know, you know.’

Before long, everyone knew. In 2007, Richard Mille became a member of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie and won the Aiguille d’Or award at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – the Oscars of the watchmaking world – and over the years the brand’s prominence increased as it aligned itself with sporting superheroes – Felipe Massa, Rafael Nadal and Fernando Alonso, to name a few. So far, sounding pretty masculine, right? Wrong. The brand released its first ladies’ watch – the RM 007 Automatic – just five years into its evolution, whereas many maisons have taken half a century or more.

The RM 007’s slightly smaller, tonneau silhouette and gold micro beads paved the way for a succession of highly precious, female-focused timepieces to come, where gem-setting was taken to new levels and masculine colour palettes were reconsidered. In 2014, the RM 07-01 was born, and just seven years later, in 2021, the brand embarked on the Coloured Ceramics Collection, a new technical exploration of colour and form. Richard Mille also recognised the value in aligning with female powerhouses – actresses Michelle Yeoh and Margot Robbie, athlete Yulia Levchenko, racing driver Aurora Strauss, pro golfer Diana Luna, and snowboarder Ester Ledecká.

While the athletes of the group obviously align with the maison’s sporting and engineering ethos, faces such as Michelle, who famously wore a Richard Mille timepiece to multiple red carpet award ceremonies with sumptuous evening gowns, proved that the brand’s ultra precious prestige could also hold its own among the classic line-up of time-telling jewels on the wrists of the rich and famous. Richard Mille was, most definitely, doing it for the girls.

For 2026, the brand has added to its RM 07-01 Coloured Ceramics collection with a trio of timepieces that pump vivacity to the max, while bringing extraordinary gem-setting into the coloured ceramics universe for the first time. Three new models – limited to 50 pieces each – are dressed in blush pink, lavender and powder blue, now with diamonds delicately placed like snowflakes.

Inspired by the creative energy of the 1980s – and harking back to our peak power dressing era – these timepieces are powered by the in-house CRMA2 calibre, skeletonised and crafted from titanium. The play of texture, between the PVD-treated red gold dial, coloured ceramics, laser-cut rubber appliqués and snow-set diamonds is similar to that witnessed within the major maisons’ haute couture collections – these are the watchmaking equivalents of whale boning, duchess satin, stiff organza, frothy silk chiffon and twinkling crystals.

Much like the emotion evoked when an extraordinary couture gown takes to the runway – fabric in motion and artful architecture at play with every step – the maison describes the new designs as a laboratory of emotions. Polished white gold casebands, satin-finished pillars illuminated by hand-set stones, the beating heart open for all to see, these watches are the preppy, almost-kitsch equivalent of a pastel power suit or a textured tweed handbag scattered with sequins from the most prominent ateliers. On price-point alone they are legacy pieces, but these are the kind of investments that are passed down the generations while speaking to the character of loved ones that came before us – no stuffy old lady connotations here. Just power, personality, and now, a little bit of razzle dazzle to boot.

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