RM 71-01
This collection was created by Cécile Guenat, Creative and Development Director. She met this challenge by overcoming technical obstacles, freeing herself from consensus and establishing a unique and resolutely contemporary style.
The ten variations on the RM 71-01 Automatic Tourbillon Talisman weave together the supreme technicity specific to Richard Mille and the sculptural universe of fine jewellery.
Talisman, a name that evokes nothing less than magical protection. This collection was born from a magnetic alchemy at the intersection of Tribal arts and Art Deco.
The notion of a collection took shape very early in the initial sketches. Thus emerged a number of interpretations, with ten different variations on the case and dial. Cécile Guenat chose to glorify the skeleton movement through the many possibilities for setting and engraving the case. Heightened by sparkling stones, the shape of the dials reveals two deliberately distinct worlds, one that is organic and the other more urban.
'My work is the fruit of very different influences. In designing this collection, I drew not only on Art Deco, but on the Tribal arts—masks, African sculptures, etc.—whose impact on all great modern and contemporary artists has been enormous. The contrasts, geometry, and sacred character of these objects fascinate me all the more because they prefigured today’s design through the fusion of content and form.'
Cécile Guenat
CALIBRE CRMT1
Automatic winding tourbillon movement with hours, minutes and variable-geometry rotor
Limited suite of 10 variations, each produced in an edition of just 5 pieces.
A masterpiece in every sense, the RM 71-01 Automatic Tourbillon Talisman abolishes the distinction between jewellery and its case. The movement, dial and case maintain an aesthetic, technical and visual dialogue in each version.
With this horological tourbillon, the brand inducts the Calibre CRMT1, its eighth, in-house calibre. The baseplate protecting the tourbillon’s rotation remains open to preserve transparency. Skeletonised and tonneau-shaped, with a thickness no greater than 6.2 mm and a weight of just 8 grams, the Calibre CRMT1—housed in a case of white or red gold—is clothed in titanium.
Cécile Guenat was adamant about offering jewelled fittings to match the mechanical sophistication of the brand. Never has a piece called upon so many different crafts: jewellery artisans, dial-maker and watchmakers were put to the test by the complexity of this extraordinary piece. While the artisanal and artistic combine their expressions in the skeletonisation, settings and production of the dials, the mechanism itself here serves to articulate ideal proportions. Thus interconnected, something magical takes place when the wheels engage.
The RM 71-01 radiates in all directions, but by no means any which way. Each and every segment of stones systematically extends or echoes one of the movement’s internal vectors. Each of the 10 dials crowns the central portion of the tourbillon. Each dial, a mere 0.9 mm in thickness, is hand set. This component is an immense technical challenge because of the many different finishing operations required: sandblasting, polishing... and all this in a very small area arranged on several levels. The bezel is adorned with diamonds in permutations that vary in the number, shape and size of the stones according to the version.