Photo: richardmille.com
Rapper, music producer and fashion icon Pharell Williams is branching out into horology, finally getting to put his name to one of those Richard Mille watches he loves so much. Seriously speaking, he has so many of them he probably bought every RM model put out in the last 15 years.
Richard Mille finally paid him notice, so this month saw the big unveil of a Pharell-designed watch, the RM 52-05 Tourbillon Pharell Williams. It is a love letter to space, written by Pharell and delivered in typical flamboyant and detailed RM fashion.
The RM 52-05 combines Cermet, titanium, white diamonds and black sapphires, and gold. The watch is set on an orange rubber band with titanium clasp, and while that may sound a bit tacky for an exclusive watch, the combination actually works.
Based on the original (and world-famous) Tourbillon Skull mechanism, the RM 52-05 is Pharell’s homage to space. The dial features the upper part of an astronaut’s suit: he’s on a mission to Mars and we’re looking at a distant Earth reflected in his visor. Creating the Martian landscape alone takes an engraver 15 hours of manual work for each single piece.
While this much attention to detail is common to RM watches, in this particular instance, it overshadows the beauty of the watch. Because of the astronaut’s suit covering much of the dial, a big part of the mechanism is obscured from view. Then again, Pharrell wanted to take you to space with this watch, and this is what he’s doing.
The baseplate includes inserts of aventurine glass, which is also known as goldstone. It glitters and resembles a starry sky, representing the “confines of the universe.” The crown recalls a rocket capsule, and is fitted with a rubber ring resembling a Martian Rover tire.
A total of 19 jewels are used for a single watch, in the projectors and cameras on the sides of the astronaut’s helmet: white diamonds and black sapphires.
“Watches are 100% an art form: you're mimicking time,” Pharrell says. “They keep time but ‘two weeks ago’ is gone, you can't show me where it is. So is ‘two weeks from now’, you can't show me that either. What Richard does is build something that lets you take the metric of what time looks like. That's a wizard-level art form.”
Only 30 copies of the Pharell RM watch will be made, retailing for $969,000 apiece.
The RM 52-05 combines Cermet, titanium, white diamonds and black sapphires, and gold. The watch is set on an orange rubber band with titanium clasp, and while that may sound a bit tacky for an exclusive watch, the combination actually works.
Based on the original (and world-famous) Tourbillon Skull mechanism, the RM 52-05 is Pharell’s homage to space. The dial features the upper part of an astronaut’s suit: he’s on a mission to Mars and we’re looking at a distant Earth reflected in his visor. Creating the Martian landscape alone takes an engraver 15 hours of manual work for each single piece.
While this much attention to detail is common to RM watches, in this particular instance, it overshadows the beauty of the watch. Because of the astronaut’s suit covering much of the dial, a big part of the mechanism is obscured from view. Then again, Pharrell wanted to take you to space with this watch, and this is what he’s doing.
The baseplate includes inserts of aventurine glass, which is also known as goldstone. It glitters and resembles a starry sky, representing the “confines of the universe.” The crown recalls a rocket capsule, and is fitted with a rubber ring resembling a Martian Rover tire.
A total of 19 jewels are used for a single watch, in the projectors and cameras on the sides of the astronaut’s helmet: white diamonds and black sapphires.
“Watches are 100% an art form: you're mimicking time,” Pharrell says. “They keep time but ‘two weeks ago’ is gone, you can't show me where it is. So is ‘two weeks from now’, you can't show me that either. What Richard does is build something that lets you take the metric of what time looks like. That's a wizard-level art form.”
Only 30 copies of the Pharell RM watch will be made, retailing for $969,000 apiece.
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