A high jewellery watch is conceived, classically, in one of two ways. The first treats it as a timepiece first and foremost, with the jewel qualities of iced-out gemsetting applied as an aesthetic treatment. The second is the reverse: a jewel designed as a bracelet with a tiny dial and quartz movement incorporated into the whole. It takes some level of creative bravado, therefore, to break with tradition and offer a new perspective—which is precisely what Richard Mille has achieved with its spellbinding new RM HJ-02 collection.
Rather than contending with whether the identity of jewel or timepiece comes first, Richard Mille has envisioned and conceived its latest treasures as a synthesised whole. The RM HJ-02 Automatic Winding Tourbillon collection is a triumph in the brand’s 20-year history of designing superlative timepieces for women, in the form now of 12 pièces uniques organised across four chromatic themes—pink, violet, blue and green. Gemstones and jewellery savoir-faire are integral parts of the watch, not just visual decoration; and the horological cred that beats at its heart is just as precious as the gems set inside and out.
This wonderful perspective on jewellery and horology comes as little surprise, given the jewellery design background of Richard Mille’s creation and development director Cécile Guenat. When she first got involved with the Swiss watch brand, Guenat was tasked with designing jewelled watches oriented at ladies. One of her first was the RM 71-01 Automatic Tourbillon Talisman, with Tribal art-inspired motifs inlaid on the dials. Then in 2020, Guenat and Richard Mille debuted the first generation of RM HJ-01, sublimating the brand’s signature tonneau case and emphasising it with art deco lines in the design.
The second generation of this high jewellery collection continues that art deco story, taking the idea even further. Guenat and Richard Mille have gotten experimental, giving the watchmaker’s gem-setters a fresh challenge. Instead of decorating merely the case of the watch with stones, the gem-set design extends even to the inside as part of its skeletonised dials and on the winding rotor.
Richard Mille has set each of the 12 one-of-a-kind watches with 1,399 precious and ornamental stones. The exact make-up varies based on the individual colourway of each watch and the chromatic theme it belongs to, but the expansive palette on the whole includes stones like: rubies, pink, purple and Padparadscha sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, Paraíba tourmalines, tsavorites, malachite, chrysoprase, chalcedony, turquoise, mother-of-pearl, sugilite, opal, chrysolemon, and charoite.
There is a mix of cut and faceted stones, as well as custom-cut stones to create inlaid marquetry compositions and to wrap around curved parts such as the crown. A masterful mix of techniques like snow, grain and bezel setting are used to bring these compositions to life, gifting the watches with visual rhythm and vivacity.
Technique is, of course, nothing without taste. Guenat demonstrates plenty, with beautiful complex compositions of stones and colours. She’s drawn from the geometric language of art deco to interrupt and radicalise the smooth tonneau shape of Richard Mille’s watches. Streams of pavé, rivières of baguette-cuts, grain-set and carved accent spears, arcs and chevrons formed from custom-cut or inlaid stones, nib-shaped inserts, and on the whole a subtle asymmetry in the choice of colours and stone cuts.
Every jewel on these watches finds their specially-made place on the case, an endeavour that took the brand over a year to develop.
Sourcing, cutting and setting these plentiful stones is a challenge all its own. In total, Richard Mille took over three years to develop the RM HJ-02 Automatic Winding Tourbillon; and the intensive savoir-faire and craftsmanship required calls for nearly 700 hours of work—or approximately 88 full working days—on each piece.
These are, of course, the jewelled aspects of the watch. Inside, Richard Mille developed a completely new in-house automatic tourbillon movement, the Calibre CRMT2, just to power the collection. So as to integrate fully the desired appearance, the skeletonised movement was designed together with both the case and dial as a harmonious whole. That explains the choice of using precious white gold for the baseplate and bridges (Richard Mille typically opts for high-tech, lightweight and super hardy titanium), which are then set with gemstones and given bevelled, microblasted and rhodium-plated finishes. Even the gold winding rotor, visible from the back, is set with radiating arcs of gemstones. Such a technical component given an expression of beauty reflects the collection’s very holistic union of mechanics and aesthetics. The result: ineffable works of art on the wrist that put a remarkable spin on a high jewellery watch.
The July/August 2026 ‘Audacity’ edition of Vogue Singapore is available online and on newsstands.
