Richard Mille has built a reputation for its avant-garde designs since the brand’s founding in 2001. In more recent years, it’s set the bar for complicated ladies’ watches with its RM 07-01 line, which combines the brand’s signature approach to watchmaking with advanced techniques, like innovative gem setting methods. The brand builds on this tradition with its latest additions to the ladies’ collection: the RM 07-01 Intergalactic.
This set of four new models reimagines the brand’s approach to gem setting once again with a combination of Carbon TPT, an exclusive material with a unique velvety matte appearance, and classic rose gold. Together, this group of diamonds and materials perfectly accentuate each other, highlighting their respective properties and the relationship between darkness and light. However, creating this effect isn’t easy. Unlike gold, which allows the craftsman to shape the prongs to secure the diamonds, Carbon TPT requires the use of diamond-bit milling tools to machine the settings. The result exemplifies Richard Mille’s expertise in working with this unique carbon composite that has become a trademark material for the brand.
The inspiration for this design comes from the cosmos themselves, with each of the four iterations in the Intergalactic lineup—the Dark Night, Starry Night, Bright Night and Misty Night—reflecting various conditions of the night sky. Each version features its own distinctive gem setting pattern, incorporating anywhere from 51 to 251 diamonds depending on the model. “It all started with the vision of an explosion of stars taking place in the black darkness,” explains Cécile Guenat, Richard Mille’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.”
While the diamond arrangement of each design varies, all of the models in the RM 07-01 Intergalactic line house the brand’s CRMA2 in-house caliber. This skeletonized automatic movement is comprised of grade 5 titanium with hours, minutes and a variable geometry rotor that optimizes the rotor’s winding motion according to the wearer’s activity level.
When it comes to the ultra-exclusive luxury watch brands within the industry, Richard Mille is definitely one of the most divisive. When describing Richard Mille to someone who isn’t a watch enthusiast, the analogy I often make is that the brand is the F1 car equivalent of a luxury watch. A well-constructed luxury sedan will give you a much greater sense of traditional refinement and will provide infinitely more creature comforts, but the state-of-the-art technology and advanced materials of the F1 car ultimately make it exponentially more expensive than something you pick up from your local luxury import dealer. With that in mind, the new Richard Mille RM 07-01 Intergalactic watches combine the brand’s signature approach of high-tech materials and futuristic designs with a unique style of gem setting that places an emphasis on the prongs of the settings themselves to emulate the glittering stars set among the vast darkness of the galaxy.