Street Smart

A veritable ‘work of art for the wrist’, the new watch will make horological history RM 68-01 Tourbillon Cyril Kongo

The new RM 68-01 Tourbillon Cyril Kongo watch is the product of Richard Mille’s vision of introducing unprecedented haute horlogerie. The tourbillon calibre is more than just a watch—it is a representation of the inspiration and creativity of street artist Cyril Kongo. The touch of art on the RM 68-01 can be found on the bridges and base plate of the watch, becoming an integral part of the timepiece and making it the first of its kind in the world of luxury watch brands.

“I come from graffiti,” said Cyril. “All my work originates there. It was my school for painting: I learned in the street. I need to remain in touch with that world while at the same time looking at what’s happening elsewhere.

“Graffiti is a language with its own codes; a form of writing, whether this be on a gigantic wall, on canvas, or any other surface. I am not a painter bound to a single space, nor to any particular surface,” he added.

Known internationally under the psedonym Cyril Kongo, the graffiti artist Cyril Phan was born in 1969 and presently resides in Paris. A self-made man and artist, he launched himself to the top of the French artistic and cultural world within a decade. His mastery of the discipline and his over twenty years of membership in the MAC Crew have established him as one of the legendary, major representative’s of the graffiti scene. Over time, Cyril has developed and expanded his artistic vision and approach towards an artistic maturity not merely defined by graffiti.

The painting technique that Cyril uses took more than a year to develop. A special airbrush was created to allow the artist to spray his colours with the utmost delicacy, one droplet at a time, keeping in mind the size of the dial. To avoid jeopardising the calibre’s equilibrium—which is essential to its functioning—the weight of the paint had to be strictly determined beforehand.

This significant challenge brought together the teams responsible for the creation of the RM 68-01, who eventually created a unique palette of brightly coloured indelible paints that adhere perfectly to the titanium components and can endure assembly and dismantling.

The production technique made it possible to draw lines barely visible to the naked eye and impossible to create directly by hand,

even if certain motifs were sketched using pens with especially fine nibs. However, the real challenge was the artist’s approach to graffiti in order to adapt to his artistic vocabulary for the extremely limited surface of a calibre.

Cyril Kongo has pushed back the furthest boundaries of horological boundaries, materialising his impeccable talent into the RM 68-01. On the back of the watch, the central form of the tourbillon movement’s baseplate radiates outwards like a splash of paint physically thrown against a wall, while the front boasts different movement bridges arcing in different directions like the wild brushstrokes found in street art murals.

Housed within a case comprising an NTPT carbon case band with black ceramic bezels, the asymmetric case design tapers in two directions: in thickness from 9 to 3 o’clock and in height between 12 and 6 o’clock. Limited to 30 pieces worldwide, the RM 68-01 combines contemporary mechanical and visual arts through an impressive impression of 21st-century timekeeping. n