RM 001 Tourbillon

The RM 001 Tourbillon is Richard Mille's very first watch, presented at Baselworld in 2001 just a few months after the operating company Horométrie SA was registered. With this model, Richard Mille and Dominique Guenat — backed by the know-how of Audemars Piguet and of the complications workshop Renaud et Papi for developing the caliber — stage for the first time the idea that would guide the whole brand: a watch with an entirely visible mechanism, built with the same rigor and the same materials as a racing car, rather than with the conventions of Geneva's watchmaking tradition.

The 18-carat white gold tonneau case, 38 mm wide and 45 mm end to end, is made of three main elements — bezel, middle case and case back — held together by eight titanium screws, while the dial reveals the entire movement: the minute tourbillon at 6 o'clock, carried by a bridge mounted horizontally on a principle inspired by the suspension rods of Formula 1 cars, the power-reserve and torque indicators, and the titanium plate with a black PVD finish. The Baselworld presentation was made memorable by a theatrical demonstration: the watch was dropped on stage to demonstrate its shock resistance, a gesture that on its own communicated more than any press release the gap between Richard Mille and the rest of fine watchmaking at the time.

Only 17 pieces were made, split into two variants according to the material of the movement's separating plate: 11 with a silvered plate and 6, rarer, with a titanium plate. The launch price, around 145,000 euros, already placed the brand in a market tier above traditional haute horlogerie. The RM 001's debut was followed that same year, 2001, by the RM 002 — which introduced the first titanium movement plate in watchmaking history — and, in 2002, by the dual-time-zone RM 003: a very rapid start to the catalog that immediately consolidated the technical and aesthetic language recognized today as unmistakably Richard Mille.