When a brand known for making some of the most innovative, expensive and complicated watches made in the last 22 years, releases their ‘most complicated watch ever.’ It is hard not to take notice. The Richard Mille RM 65-01 is the culmination of 5 years of development, an automatic split-second chronograph with more party tricks than you could need in one watch. a vertical Date display, rapid winding pusher, Crown Pusher for Function selection. The fully skeletonized Movement RMAC4, has a baseplate made of Grade 5 titanium offering extreme rigidity even under major torque transfer. All enclosed in a Carbon TPT case that has become synonymous with Richard Mille.
While the dial can seem like a lot to take in on first viewing, fortunately, each function has been somewhat colour coded. The first being the yellow-tipped main hands and 6 o’clock sundial displaying hours, minutes and seconds. The Split-second chronograph is displayed with the orange subdials, 30 minute counter at 3 o’clock and 12 hour counter at 9 o’clock, an interesting function is the crown pusher which actuates the highly specialised gearbox, switching between winding, date and hand setting. This function can be seen with the colour coded display at 4 o’clock.
Taking a look at the 8 o’clock pusher you will find the ‘rapid winding’ pusher, described by Richard Mille’s engineers as ‘very playful.’ Rapid winding is a mechanism developed in addition to the variable-geometry rotor. To be used to ‘quickly’ wind the watch after sitting idle and fully resetting the barrel after an immoderate 125 presses, almost as exorbitant as the price point. Something that we do hope to see more brands take on is the variable-geometry rotor. Currently exclusive to Richard Mille, this system makes it possible to adapt the rewinding of the mainspring to the activity level of the user. Adjusting the 3-position weight, this means the inertia of the rotor is modified to either speed up the winding process for leisurely wear or slow it down during sporting activity.
The Richard Mille is as full of features and innovation as you would expect but also carrying the price tag to match. The Rm 65-01 is currently available only through Richard Mille boutiques in London, Las Vegas, NYC, Geneva, Beverly Hills, Istanbul, Paris, Boston, Singapore, Aspen and Dubai.
