Richard Mille Declares Endless Summer With Playfully Colored, $200,000 Watches

The Italian art and architecture movement founded by Ettore Sottssas fuses geometric Art Deco style with a fizzy Pop-Art sensibility. Memphis design is experiencing something of a renaissance after a group of designers under the umbrella name Memphis Milano revived the aesthetic for a collection of objects and furniture at last year’s Triennale Milano. 

“I find Memphis design particularly fascinating in its diversity and freedom,” said Cécile Guenat, creative and development director at Richard Mille in a news release. “The creator’s goal at the time was to escape the strictures of Modernist aesthetics, and they were pioneers in the use of all types of materials through their designs.”

Guenat is a master at infusing the brand’s highly technical watchmaking with a sense of fun and lightheartedness expressed through colorful materials and whimsical design, demonstrated before with the Bon Bon collection and Smiley Tourbillon. It’s quite a feat in watches that run hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Guenat selected three summery colors—blush pink, lavender, and powder blue—for the brand’s signature tonneau cases constructed from Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystal (TZP) ceramic. The robust material, which is used for the bezel and case back, is not only ultralight and extremely durable with a hardness of 1,400 Vickers, it also retains its color over long periods of time without fading. 

The colorful, scratch-resistant bezels and case backs are connected by micro-blasted white gold case bands accented with polished pillars. The three-part case design is water resistant to 50 meters. Complementary varnished calfskin straps complete the look.

Each case protects the skeletonized, automatic-winding CRMA2 movement with bridges and base plates in micro-blasted grade-5 titanium with an electro-plasma treatment.

Despite the pretty colors the CRMA2 is far from delicate. It’s built for action and is equipped with the brand’s variable geometry rotor in 5N 18-karat red gold that adapts the winding of the watch to the wearer’s activity and generates a power reserve of about 50 hours. 

The contemporary guilloché-engraved linear Memphis motifs are showcased on gray PVD-treated, open-worked red gold dials and embellished with additional Memphis accents in colored ceramic, laser-cut rubber appliques, and diamond-set elements.

“At the heart of the design process for this collection was the idea of juxtaposing colors in materials,” Guenat adds. “Then we enriched this work by weaving inside the ancient craft of guillochage. This creates a symbiosis of the ultra-modern and the traditional in watchmaking.”