Richard Mille Introduces the RM028 Orange Flash and 3 More Limited Editions for the EMEA Region

11/05/2013 | By Frank Geelen | 3 min read |

Richard Mille is synonymous for luxury sports watches, or maybe even synonymous for the ultimate luxury in sports watches. Whether it’s a big round dive watch with a tourbillon or a an extremely light-weight tonneau shaped watch with a tourbillon that can be worn when playing golf, like the RM038 Bubba Watson Tourbillon; Richard Mille creates timepieces for people who also have a Black Card for a credit card and a Vertu instead of a boring middle-class iPhone.

What sets Richard Mille’s watches apart from the crowd, are the iconic case designs and the unmistakably recognizable three-dimensional sculptures that his mechanical movements are. Richard Mille has taken luxury sports watches to a level, where even the veterans of the watch industry didn’t dare to go.

This week Richard Mille announced four new watches. There will be a black edition of the RM 055 Bubba Watson (being the Bubba Watson watch without the tourbillon), two tourbillon watches in a carbon case and one relatively simple dive watch with striking orange accents: the RM 028 Orange Flash.

And I have to admit… I love it. A robust dive watch, with massive amount of technical looking details, everything is perfectly finished and the colors are simply striking. Take for instance the different types of finishing on the case, satin finished parts, straight line brushing in different directions and angles, and that just millimeters apart. Or the technical looking bezel, with 22 torque screws that prevent from accidental movement of the bezel while diving. Of course the bezel of the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Chrono or Rolex Sea-Dweller Deep Sea won’t accidentally rotate when you’re at 30 meters below sea-level, but it looks brilliant.

The RM 028 Orange comes in a titanium DLC-treated case, on a black rubber strap with a titanium DLC buckle. Orange details adorn the bezel, the (sapphire crystal) dial and the rehaut. RM 028 Orange Flash is a limited edition of 10 pieces and it isn’t the first RM 028 limited edition, as you can see below. It could well be my favorite, although I also really like the RM 028 Les Voiles de St. Barth (yellow accents and strap) and the RM 028 St. Tropez (with blue accents and white rubber).

The limited edition RM 028 Orange Flash comes at a price of € 86.500 Euro including 21% tax, exclusive for the Richard Mille Boutiques and official retailers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and countries of the former Soviet Republic. The other three models are also exclusively for the EMEA region.

One of them is the RM 055 Black Edition, which is the black version of this watch below that I tried on my wrist at the infamous Schnitzel Dinner during the recent Baselworld fair. Because my photo (taken with my ‘mundane’ iPhone in low light) was really awful, I’ll use a much better photo (borrowed from a Japanese website). The RM 055is very light, wear super comfortable and features, like all Richard Mille timepieces, a mechanical movement that is skeletonized to the max. It comes at a price of € 90.500 Euros including 21% tax.

There are two more limited editions, both limited to just 5 pieces, and exclusively for the EMEA region: The RM 003 Carbon, limited edition of 5 pieces (€ 334.000,- Euros incl. tax) and the RM 021 Carbon (available for € 370.500,- Euros incl. tax).

The latter (see below) features a very striking dial, which is a so-called honey-comb dial. This type of dial was first used in a wrist watch by Hautlence. The RM 021 Carbon is a unique edition of RM 021 tourbillon “Aerodyne” and combines an orthorhombic titanium aluminide (for the honeycomb dial) and carbon nanofiber baseplate with an equally innovative and lightweight case made of a carbon nanotubes-injected polymer.

The manually wound mechanical movement features a tourbillon and indicates hours, minutes and the remaining power reserve. Furthermore the RM 021 features a torque indicator and a function selector; the latter tells you whether the crown is in the position to adjust the time or in neutral (winding position).