Heavenly Encounter—Richard Mille’s RM 07-01 Starry Night

With the night sky’s glittering constellations as inspiration, Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille extends its iconic RM 07-01 Automatic collection for women. The new execution of the manufacturer’s most popular lady’s watch retains the original RM 07-01’s tonneau-shaped three-piece case, winding rotor with variable geometry to best suit its owner, and sapphire crystal views into its hand-finished movement. The new Starry Night edition charts a course of its own, thanks to unprecedented adornments. The bezels and bracelet of the Starry Night are crafted from Carbon TPT®, a strong and light high-performance material with numerous applications in yacht construction. In a timepiece, Carbon TPT is excellent for protecting the movement, and visually mesmerizing thanks to damascene patterns and moiré sheen. Those same characteristics make it a challenge for the jeweler, though. Unlike gold, which an artisan can manipulate with their own tools to shape into prongs for holding gems, Carbon TPT’s hardness and resistance require the use of custom CNC machines equipped with diamond bits to drill the settings. These seemingly randomly-placed settings contain the 18K red gold prongs—hand-polished to a high luster—whose precious job is to hold the timepiece’s 181 white diamonds of various sizes on the case and dial.  The result is a dusting of brilliant diamonds that shine like stars in the deep black sky.

Beating at the heart of the RM 07-01 is caliber CRMA2, a skeletonized movement made in-house at the Richard Mille manufacture in Le Breuleux, Switzerland. From the ergonomic fit of the case, to the shapely gold crown, to the tonneau-shaped clasp of the bracelet, great care is given to every detail of the newest icon in the collection.

The RM 07-01 Starry Night is available exclusively at Richard Mille boutiques worldwide, for $268,000.  For more information and boutique locations, please visit richardmille.com.