RICHARD MILLE RM HJ-02: HIGH JEWELLERY SHAPED BY MECHANICAL ARCHITECTURE

Richard Mille’s RM HJ-02 In-House Automatic Tourbillon approaches high jewellery through the language of movement, structure and engineering. Created as the second chapter in the brand’s high-jewellery story, the collection comprises 12 unique timepieces divided between four colour families: Blue Ballet, Green Gambit, Violet Variations and Pink Pursuit. Each explores a different chromatic expression while retaining the same underlying principle: the gemstones are not applied merely as ornament, but incorporated into the architecture of the watch itself.

The collection also marks 20 years of Richard Mille’s design for women, translating that history into a particularly elaborate study of colour and form. Across the RM HJ-02, gem-setting extends from the case and buckle into the movement, creating a visual continuity between the exterior silhouette and the mechanics beneath it. The effect is deliberately immersive, with the stones helping to establish the identity of each watch rather than simply accentuating an existing design.

There are 1,399 precious and ornamental stones set into each timepiece. Rubies, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds and Paraíba tourmalines are combined with materials including malachite, chrysoprase, turquoise and mother-of-pearl. Richard Mille employs snow, grain and bezel-setting techniques to organise the different shapes, colours and surfaces, producing compositions in which the stones follow the lines of the watch rather than sitting apart from them.

That approach makes the RM HJ-02 particularly dependent on precision at every stage. According to Richard Mille, nearly 700 hours are devoted to each watch when preparation, gem-setting, finishing, and multiple control procedures are taken into account — approximately 88 full working days. The case itself required more than a year of development, while the entire watch took over three years to develop.

The case is a significant departure from the uninterrupted curves traditionally associated with the tonneau form. Here, the familiar silhouette is divided by sharp transitions, layered planes and asymmetrical interruptions, drawing from the geometric vocabulary of Art Deco while translating it through Richard Mille’s contemporary technical language. The resulting structure gives the gemstones a series of distinct surfaces across which colour and light can shift.

Beneath this elaborate exterior sits an equally considered piece of mechanics. The RM HJ-02 is powered by the new in-house CRMT2, a skeletonised automatic tourbillon movement displaying hours and minutes. Measuring 30.70 by 23.70mm and 6.20mm thick, the calibre operates at 28,800 vibrations per hour, or 4Hz, and provides approximately 50 hours of power reserve.

The movement has been designed to participate in the visual composition rather than remain hidden behind it. Its baseplate and bridges are machined from 18K white gold, microblasted and bevelled by hand, with gemstones integrated into their surfaces. The skeletonised construction leaves the mechanical architecture exposed, allowing the movement and the jewellery work to be read as parts of the same design.

The regulating system uses a free-sprung balance with variable inertia. Instead of relying on a conventional regulator index, four adjustable weights positioned directly on the balance allow the movement to be calibrated more precisely and repeatably. Richard Mille also highlights the system’s ability to improve reliability when the watch is exposed to shocks or when the movement is assembled and disassembled.

Automatic winding is provided by a gem-set gold rotor incorporating Richard Mille’s One-Way® reverser system on ceramic ball bearings. The movement also uses a fast-rotating barrel, designed to reduce periodic adhesion of the mainspring and support a more consistent relationship between power reserve, performance and regularity. These mechanisms remain visible within the openworked architecture, making technical function part of the visual narrative.

The attention to finish continues throughout the calibre. Hand-polished anglage, stepped bevelling, microblasted sections and carefully treated wheels give the movement a layered surface language, while the going train uses a dedicated 20-degree pressure-angle tooth profile developed for Richard Mille’s in-house calibres. Grade 5 titanium spline screws are used for the bridges and case, allowing precise torque control during assembly and disassembly.

The sapphire construction further opens the watch to view. The bezel-side crystal is sapphire with anti-glare treatment on both sides, while the caseback is also made from sapphire and treated against reflections. This transparency is particularly important to the RM HJ-02 because so much of its identity is found in the relationship between the gem-set surfaces and the mechanical elements beneath them.

Richard Mille was established in 2001, when its first timepiece, the RM 001 Tourbillon, was introduced in an initial series of 17 watches. The brand was founded by Richard Mille in partnership with Dominique Guenat, drawing on their shared interests in mechanics, automotive engineerin,g and advanced watchmaking. Its manufacturing base in Les Breuleux, in the Swiss Jura, remains central to its development and production activities through Horométrie S.A. and Guenat S.A. Montres Valgine. From its earliest creations, the brand has pursued a combination of technical experimentation, distinctive ergonomics, architecture and high-level finishing.

The RM HJ-02 extends that philosophy into an especially intricate field. High jewellery and high watchmaking are often presented as separate disciplines, yet this collection treats them as a shared construction problem. The gemstones determine rhythm and colour across the case; the skeletonised movement provides the internal framework; and the tourbillon remains visible as a moving centre within the composition.

The result is therefore less about adding jewellery to a finished watch than designing the watch around jewellery from the beginning. Each of the 12 pieces becomes its own interpretation of the same technical foundation, with colour, stone selection and geometry creating differences between the four chromatic universes.

For collectors in the UAE, Richard Mille’s current official store locator lists boutiques in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The Dubai boutique is located on Level G of The Dubai Mall, Grand Atrium, while the Abu Dhabi boutique is at The Galleria Mall on Al Maryah Island. Both locations offer appointments through the brand’s official network.

The RM HJ-02 ultimately demonstrates how far a mechanical watch can be pushed when its decorative and technical elements are conceived as one discipline. Its abundance of colour is immediately expressive, but the deeper interest lies in the construction beneath that spectacle: stones follow mechanical lines, the movement becomes part of the jewellery composition, and the familiar tonneau case is rebuilt through geometry and light. In that sense, the collection’s most distinctive quality is not simply its extravagance, but the precision with which extravagance has been engineered.