Beauty, flair and haute horlogerie. Those are the meeting points of the RM 07-01 collection, the quintessential feminine line by the Swiss brand Richard Mille. It’s the model with a more slender, elegant silhouette, and where the watchmaker has introduced fabulous gem-setting and jewellery-style options. In 2021, creative and development director Cécile Guenat added a new dimension of feel-good colour to the watch thanks to its first line of Coloured Ceramics models.
Most of the RM 07-01 collection is crafted in a classic, sophisticated palette of gold, black and white. Coloured Ceramics, however, breaks with tradition by introducing summery pastels on the ultra-lightweight yet hardy TZP (tetragonal zirconia polycrystal) cases. Guenat followed this up in 2023 with a second chapter of Memphis-inflected pieces, smartly bridging this novel palette and visual language she had devised with a seminal design movement.
This year, Richard Mille is bringing its Coloured Ceramics chapter to a close with a third collection of three chic and cheerful models limited to 50 pieces each. What’s new and different? The main evolution is the addition of gem-setting—a feat that the brand explored, tested and mastered on other models cased in ceramic. Essentially, the highlight is the way Richard Mille sets gold prongs and gemstones into ceramic, a material that’s much harder than traditional precious metals like gold.
The Blush Pink model features diamonds with yellow and blue sapphires, the Powder Blue model pairs pink sapphires and green tsavorites with diamonds, and the Lavender Pink version plays with a warm palette of orange sapphires, rubies and diamonds.
These precious gems are complemented, of course, by the Coloured Ceramics line’s signature cut-out pattern dials, which are made from unusual materials and textures like ceramic inserts, laser-cut rubber appliqués, and panels of guilloché gold. More than just an aesthetic statement of lightness and whimsy, the collection can perhaps be read as a witty way of harmonising tradition (the guillocheur’s craft and the high-performing in-house automatic CRMA2 calibre, for example) with rule-breaking craftsmanship like the use of powdery pastel ceramics, transforming jewellery savoir-faire to set gems in these ceramics, and putting novel materials like rubber on a dial. Undeniably creative, the RM 07-01 Coloured Ceramics line is going out not with a whimper but with a cheerful, audacious bang.
The May 2026 ‘Nomad’ edition of Vogue Singapore is available online and on newsstands.
