Every watch tells a different story. Every creation whispers new emotions and sensations. Here is the story of the new RM 72-01 Lifestyle In-House Chronograph, poised at the intersection between Haute Horlogerie, dance and music. Movement is all. Movement of time, of bodies, of notes.
Richard Mille shows the world its latest face through a work in which technicity serves and drives elegance. In addition to the emotional factor, the RM 72-01 is a full in-house creation, featuring the first flyback chronograph entirely developed and designed by the brand itself. This meticulous work is achieved by dedicated and inspired women and men who gave it no less than 30 months of full time work.
The new RM 72-01 keeps time, three beats to a measure, a rhythm emphasising three numbers: three, eight and eleven. Three beats for the three counters that immediately capture every eye. The hands dance in stylised harmony within their three respective timescales (blue for seconds, orange for minutes, green for hours), orchestrated by a six-column wheel. The RM 72-01 is a whole show by itself, a movement, a moment frozen in time full of complex beauty and chaotic aesthetics.
The transfers from minutes to hours have been isolated from the seconds wheel in this flyback chronograph which incorporates a double oscillating pinion mechanism developed and patented by Richard Mille. The brand has submitted a patent application for its double-clutch chronograph. ‘This pinion, which can enmesh or withdraw from the gear teeth, has been twinned. There’s now one for the minutes and another for seconds. This system is thinner than a vertical clutch, which would be hard to fit into the heart of the movement,’ explains Salvador Arbona, Technical Director for Movements. As a result, the chronograph function has little impact on the power reserve. The Calibre CRMC1 thus remains quite slim, at just 6.05 mm thick, despite comprising 425 different components.
Equipped with 24-hour and 60-minute counters positioned at 5 o’clock and 2 o’clock respectively, it proves that a chronograph need not be limited to timing only short periods. This mechanism was entirely imagined, manufactured and assembled in Les Breuleux, at the brand’s facilities. Its sublime precision can be viewed through its openwork case back, a hallmark of the Richard Mille brand.
This model is available in four different combinations—5N red gold, titanium and black or white ceramic. It features an automatic winding movement, with a 50-hour power reserve irrespective of how much the chronograph is activated. It is a strikingly architectural watch offering true ease of use. Embodying pure mechanics and hand finishing, it is designed for everyday use.
The artistic side of this Richard Mille new born had to be represented in a choreography… a one that allows to put words on emotions. To express such a technical, sensitive and artistic aspect, the choreographer Benjamin Millepied and the composer Thomas Roussel were needed. Like Richard Mille, both of these hybrid creators have built their oeuvre, W I T H I N, on a resolutely singular vision and an obsession with perfect timing and harmonious movement.
For Benjamin Millepied and Thomas Roussel, heritage and tradition are the key to create a modern vision of their respective arts. They fashion singular works that powerfully combine the quintessence of their disciplines and their contemporary sensibilities. And it is precisely this hybrid synthesis of science and emotion that prompted them to embrace the watchmaking brand’s new project. In order to create the present, the past is needed, traditions and know how are everything that makes the brand today.
Their work titled W I T H I N took place at the Joshua Tree, in the heart of sand and stone where this time Benjamin Millepied took place behind the camera. This stark mineral environment exalts the nobility and beauty of the materials Richard Mille employs for its watches. Quality, beauty and meticulous aspect are translated by body movements, face expressions, intense vitality and energy in a specular scenery with beautiful nature colours.
What inspired Thomas Roussel is the setting where humanity appears to reconnect with our origins. After sampling the watch’s chronometric function, the compositor built a tempo around it, a musical rhythm anchored in the raw energy and abandon of the dancers. Around a whirlwind of vitality, he weaves a music redolent of origins, repetitive and mysterious. The composition was recorded by the fifty musicians of the prestigious London Symphony Orchestra in the studio at St. Luke’s church in London.
W I T H I N anchored many senses to the RM 72-01 through music and dance, that gives to the new watch LIFE… and emotions as if it was alive, part of nature. The watch is representing the past with heritage, the present with the present moment and the artistic movements and the future with the revolutionary technical innovation.
The RM 72-01 Lifestyle In-House Chronograph encapsulates the original movement.