READY FOR ACTION
Richard Mille works with Sylvester Stallone to unveil the RM 25-01 Tourbillon Adventure watch
IT LOOKS LIKE Richard Mille is at it again! On August 7 this year, Sylvester Stallone’s Instagram account lit up when the actor posted a picture of himself seated next to Richard Mille, founder of the eponymous luxury watch brand. On Stallone’s wrist was a rather huge timepiece. Stallone announced that the name of the watch was “RM 25-01 … and this is the first time the watch has been shown to the world!” A close-up shot of the watch’s dial soon followed. The post instantly garnered hundreds of thousands of likes. Soon after, Richard Mille’s PR machine kicked in and the watch’s official name – RM 25-01 Tourbillon Adventure Sylvester Stallone – was revealed. The informal “viral debut” goes to show how Richard Mille constantly breaks the norm. The brand, as Mille likes to say, is the “enfant terrible” of fine watchmaking. It likes to do things differently. It eschews conformity. Experimentation is one of its core values, but the aim is always to produce an extreme watch without compromise or artifice. This cavalier attitude and the resulting production of over-the-top, high-performance timepieces are what
draw fans (those with a load of personal success and wealth) and watch enthusiasts to the brand. Mille unveiled his first Richard Mille timepiece in 2001. Since then, the brand has carved a niche in the luxury watch industry with its avant-garde designs, its pioneering use of space-age materials, and its partnerships with high-profile athletes and celebrities. Mille and Stallone have long been friends. So it came as no surprise that Mille decided to dedicate this latest, one-of-a-kind creation to his pal. Many know the Hollywood star for his roles on screen – the die-hard boxer Rocky Balboa in the Rocky series and, later, as John Rambo in the 1982 movie First Blood. The latter cemented his reputation as a tough guy with a big heart and a conscience. In real life when he’s not in front of the camera, Stallone is also a director, a screenwriter, a businessman, an artist and an avid watch collector. In watch circles, he’s been credited for bringing many fine brands into public consciousness. He owns an extensive collection of classics, and even has some pieces customised to his liking. One of his favourite brands is Richard Mille, which he touted in the movie The Expendables 3. In his role as macho man Barney Ross in the third instalment of the franchise, Stallone sports a RM 032 on a red strap. Creating the RM 25-01 took four years of collaboration between the watchmaker and the action star. Mille didn’t want to just stuff a wristful of technical complications into an existing model and give it a name. He wanted a timepiece that not only embodies the personality and character of Stallone, on and off camera, but also a watch that can truly thrive in extreme and hostile conditions, just like Rambo. As such, the RM 25-01 “is like no watch that has ever existed before”, says Mille. “Like Sylvester Stallone himself, it’s completely unfettered … and as an object it’s completely in sync with the brand: extreme, designed for extreme conditions, useful, sophisticated and complex, yet unbelievably tough.” True to his words, the RM 25-01 is more than a mere timepiece. Mille has equipped it with a host of additional instruments and features that an adventurous guy like Stallone or Rambo would ostensibly appreciate. Starting with the size, which, in this case, matters. The RM 25-01 measures a formidable 50.85mm in diameter. One must remember that this watch is made to withstand hostile conditions, so it needs to pack quite a few survivalist features for it to function as part timekeeper and part survival tool. But Richard Mille is a master in the art of ergonomics and despite its imposing size the RM25-01 sits comfortably on almost any wrist. The RM 25-01 comes in a round case, made from a combination of grade 5 titanium and Carbon TPT. Both materials are extremely light, resilient and sturdy – almost indestructible, like the exceptionally brawny heroes portrayed by Stallone in his films. Carbon TPT, which has become something of a Richard Mille signature, has a damascene surface, which endows the RM 25-01 with a sleek yet rugged look. Inside the case beats an in-house highly skeletonised movement – a tourbillon complication and a complex new chronograph that took Richard Mille’s engineers many months of work to optimise.