Richard Mille RM 030: Avant-Garde Watch Designing and Engineering At Its Best
The Richard Mille RM 030 is a cutting-edge watch with an elegant design and futuristic functionalities. As an innovative and visionary watch company, Richard Mille has always strived to maintain a highly sophisticated and specialist approach to designing unique watches that aren't just timeless but are also durable, have complex movements, and exude a feeling of sheer opulence, confidence, and prestige. Considering this is a relatively young company, Richard Mille has become a cherished and phenomenally sought-after brand in the watch industry.
Globally known for its off-the-wall watch designs and movements, which truly push the boundaries of rational timekeeping, Richard Mille has remained quintessential with its avant-garde watches that are setting benchmarks across the watch industry. Although the company was founded 22 years ago, owing to its exemplary and peerless craftsmanship, watchmaking ingenuity, and compounded eccentricity, RM quickly took the world of horology by storm.
The History of the Brand
To have a good idea about the ideology of the brand, it's very important to understand the man spearheading the company into future – Richard Mille. Mille dove into the world of watchmaking in the 70s, when he began his career at Finhor (a French watch company). After the company was acquired by Matra in the early 80s, Richard Mille began to quickly climb the ladder of corporate success and ended up running the company's marketing and watchmaking departments.
Then after Matra was bought by Seiko, Mille decided to join Mauboussin, a prominent and reputed jewelry company, and propelled his career in the luxury watch industry. It was in the late 90s that Richard Mille would take steps towards establishing his own luxury watch brand and finally in 2001, he would unveil the legendary and iconic RM 001 tourbillon to the world, dazzling the audiences at a Baselworld watch event. Very quickly, Mille was able to secure high-powered brand endorsements, working with influential and renowned athletes and celebrities, using his abilities as a profound marketer, further propelling his artistic and super-luxurious timepieces throughout the globe.
The Richard Mille RM 030 In a Nutshell
The company launched its incredible RM 030 timepieces in 2011. The revolutionary watch consists of the sophisticated RMAR1 movement. It took the company years just to create the concept of the watch, especially the ingenious way the watch can declutch automatically. The system is nothing short of a marvel in mechanical engineering. The winding barrel is designed to easily disconnect from the main rotor when the spring is completely wound. This enables the oscillator and the movement of the watch to operate accurately at the ideal ratio of continuous torque, offering unparalleled chronometric functionality and performance.
The perfectionist and visionary watchmaking genius, Richard Mille, aimed for a transcended design when he first created the RM 030. In addition, the elegant timepiece provides a 55-hour power reserve and its brilliantly incorporated declutchable rotor system keeps all the dust and debris out of the winding barrel.
The Calibre RMAR1: The Epitome of Timekeeping Magnificence
The centerpiece of the Richard Mille RM 030 is the state-of-the-art Calibre RMAR1, a truly unique and sophisticated skeletonized movement system with automatic winding. The movement comprises a wealth of features such as minutes, seconds, hours, power reserve indicator, and the winding indicator. The RMAR1 caliber's bridges and baseplate are manufactured with high-quality industry-grade titanium, which is impeccably corrosion-resistant and a very strong alloy, making the watch immensely durable and allowing for streamlined and uninterruptible gear train functioning. Apart from titanium, the watch is also made with several other unique materials such as vanadium and aluminum, all of which are used in the aerospace and aeronautics industry and are not heard of in the watchmaking sector.
Why Richard Mille Watches Are Some of The Most Expensive Watches in The World
Design and Engineering Excellence
Thanks to unique designs and avant-garde watch engineering, Richard Mille watches are easily recognizable. It's like wearing a mini FI race car on your wrists – that's how phenomenally RM watches are made and engineered. In addition, the design and complexity of the brand's watches are directly inspired by F1 race cars.
With futuristic visual aesthetics, cutting-edge craftsmanship, and truly unique materials, the company produces watches that can't be found anywhere else. But one of the more intriguing and absolutely brilliant things about these watches is the fact that despite using so many components and materials, the watches aren't heavy – on the contrary, they're pretty lightweight, very easy to wear, and ensure maximum comfort.
You have to appreciate the time and effort that goes into the development of that iconic tonneau-shaped case, which is also one of the brand's most distinguished features. The legendary sandwich-style watch casings are very expensive and sophisticated to produce. The casings consist of multiple decks, back-to-front bezels, and compartments in the dial.
In addition, each component that's used to build these cases is curved. Richard Mille watches don't have flat surfaces, which in itself is quite remarkable because machining curved components or surfaces is very painstaking and requires thousands of hours of dedicated and meticulous processes. Furthermore, each component is precisely machined and set perfectly, making the watches moisture and dust-resistant.
Intricate Hand-Finishing
When you talk about the visual brilliance of Richard Mille watches, the company accounts for everything. From comfort and ergonomics to design excellence, each watch is hand-finished and undergoes a series of very technical processes. For instance, the dial alone takes several months to be manufactured, incorporating complex mechanical processes.
The skeletonized dials, something the company is globally renowned for, are made with meticulous layering of quality materials, such as sapphire crystals amongst many others, for accurate timekeeping, legibility, and viewability amidst so many movements in the watches. In all, the hand-crafting element in all RM watchmaking stages is quite painstaking and laborious and involves the top-most level of horology mastery and technical brilliance – some reasons why Richard Mille watches command such exorbitant prices.
High-Level and Innovative Materials
It's not just the design brilliance of RM watches that make them so cutting-edge and unparalleled compared to a variety of other luxury brands, it's the sophistication and type and quality of materials used. The company utilizes materials that are unheard of in the world of luxurious watches. The materials RM uses can be predominantly found in the aerospace and FI race car industries and are also used to design and manufacture race yachts. These materials aren't commonly used in making progressively high-tech watches.
Richard Mille has invested millions of dollars in the research and development of his tech-infused watches, continually finding more innovative ways to use these materials and craft even more revolutionary watches. For instance, the company uses materials such as titanium, vanadium, and aluminum, which at first may lead you to believe that the watches may come out bulky but it's completely the opposite. The material compositions combined with intricate machining produce extremely lightweight and comfortable watches. And while Richard Mille watches are certainly big, on average, they weigh up to 40gms – you may not even feel as if you're wearing a watch.
Complex Movements
Apart from the materials used, the finishing techniques used are exemplary. For example, RM watches are hand-polished, have satin finishes, and undergo Anglage finishing. The company has a team of highly skilled and experienced artisans who execute finishing with flawless perfection, leading to a dazzling marvel of technical and visual art that will always be a pleasure to look at for decades. Richard Mille is a true genius and technical pioneer when it comes to comprehending and visualizing the need for watch enthusiasts and collectors to see what's going on in the watches they wear, and he has accomplished his vision with flying colors. After all, it is truly the movement of the watch that is amongst its most valued features.
Furthermore, Richard Mille is invested in building revolutionary tourbillon movements – which is essentially a rotating cage that consists of extremely progressive and technically complex manufacturing processes. With a continuous focus on using more innovative methodologies and even more radical materials, Richard Mille, without a doubt, has perfected the art of creating the most advanced tourbillon movements.
Celebrities Sporting the Richard Mille RM 030
Chris Brown
Winner of multiple music awards including one American Music Award, two ASCAP Latin Awards, and multiple BET awards, Chris Brown is a renowned rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. In addition, Brown has also appeared in multiple Hollywood productions, such as Takers, Stomp The Yard, and Into The Woods, among many others. However, the singer and actor is most renowned for his smooth lyrics, catchy voice, and epic dance moves.
Brown has a diverse collection of expensive watches and is also known for living an extravagant lifestyle. He has been seen donning the elegant Richard Mille RM 030 in white ceramic from the company's limited edition series known as 'Le Mans Classic'.
Paul Pogba
A brilliant and extremely versatile soccer player who plays for Serie A Juventus and the French National football team, Paul Pogma is a talented player with worldwide fame and several awards to his name. Pogba led the team to victory in the 2013 FIFA Under-20 World Cup as the captain of the team and was also awarded the Best Player of the Tournament.
Off-field, he is among some of the richest soccer players in the world with several top-class endorsements. He is known for living a luxurious lifestyle, owning expensive cars and a multimillion-dollar mansion. However, he is also known for his taste in elegant and high-end watches and was recently seen wearing the Richard Mille RM 030 'White Rush' edition.
Lil Uzi Vert
Famous American rapper and songwriter, Symere Bysil Woods, also known as Lil Uzi Vert, is a celebrated hip-hop sensation who has many awards and accolades to his name, including one American Music Award, an MTV Video Music award, and countless others. His rise to fame came from his debut single "Money Longer" in 2016 although the rapper has been active in the industry since 2012. Lil Uzi Vert is also known for living an eccentric lifestyle, is a lover of Richard Mille watches, and owns a titanium Richard Mille RM 030.
James Harden
Winner of three NBA titles and one of basketball's best shooters, James Harden is a sensational basketball player who plays for the Los Angeles Clippers. Due to his excellent all-around skills, Harden has some of the best statistics in the league. For instance, from 2018-2019, Harden consistently scored 30 points per game for 32 games straight. And in 2018, he went on to become the first NBA player to score 60 points while recording a triple-double (at least 10 points, rebounds, and assists).
Off the court, Harden is known for his lavish lifestyle and throwing expensive birthday celebrations. However, he also has a love for luxurious watch brands, and one of them is Richard Mille. Recently, the All-Star player was seen wearing a black titanium RM 030 with a skeletonized dial.
Why It May Be a Good Idea to Buy a Preowned Richard Mille Watch
There are a lot of reasons why it can be good to invest in a preowned Richard Mille. For starters, you won't have to pay a premium price attached to newer editions (which are eye-watering). And this is perhaps one of the best advantages of a secondary watch market. However, it also makes sense to go for a secondhand Richard Mille RM 030 if you're considering selling the piece sometime in the foreseeable future.
In addition, it's a good idea to invest in preowned watches if you're a collector who is in the habit of selling and buying watches frequently. The secondary watch market is the only place where you may be able to sustain or maintain the survivability of your hobbies because the alternative is buying a $200,000+ watch.
Bottom Line
Richard Mille watches are the epitome of class, sublime engineering, and peerless performance. The company manufactures watches that don't just look brilliant, they can last a lifetime and may even increase in value. If you're looking to buy your first RM watch, visit one of the Avi & Co. watch boutiques located in NYC, Miami, and Aspen and check out our extensive collection online.