This year, Richard Mille continues its collaboration with polo player Pablo Mac Donough with the RM 53-01 Pablo Mac Donough Tourbillon, which houses a foolproof horological mechanical movement in a black carbon TPT case. Pure Richard Mille for this masculine and ultra-sporty timepiece.
Richard Mille was a loyal friend. Its ambassadors are not just the men and women who wear their watches for photographs during a certain season. These are real, lasting collaborations. Rafael Nadal, Felipe Massa, Sebastien Ogier, Bubba Watson and Pablo Mack · Dono (Pablo Mac Donough) is not just an ambassador, before becoming the brand image of Richard Mille (Richard Mille), they are all relatives of Richard.
The last watch to emerge from these watchmaking and sporting friendships? RM 53-01 Pablo MacDonough Tourbillon. There is a long story between polo and watchmaking… It begins with Jaeger-LeCoultre and its famous Reverso watch, whose famous reversing case was designed at the time to protect the “glass within glass” “Save from the watches worn by athletes in competitions… the rest of the story will continue with Piaget and its famous Polo watch, and then Hublot and its Infinity Limited series.
Richard Mille has been Pablo Mac Donough’s partner since 2010. This man is literally one of the best polo players in the world. Back then, during their first collaboration, Richard Mille envisioned a copy men watch with a “caparison” case that would protect the watch during a polo match, which can be particularly violent!
This new watch from Richard Mille has been designed in the same spirit. Offers polo players the possibility to wear their watches during matches! But, as you can imagine, polo is one of the most demanding sports on a tourbillon movement (we advise all sane watch lovers not to wear their favorite watch during games). With or without swirls! ).
Sudden turns, violent swings, violent collisions between horse and rider: so much power goes well beyond the norm usually encountered in other sports. Polo, the “king of sports”, is a very elegant but also very physical game.
It’s not a miracle that one of polo’s greatest champions is able to wear a watch, and it’s a tourbillon, fully operational, it’s the product of years of research and research into the performance’s resistance in the face of violent conflict. As experts in the field, the brand designed the RM 53-01 around one goal: to make it extremely durable while exalting its performance.
“Polo is a dangerous game, with shocks and impacts. It’s a game of great grace but also very physical,” explains Richard Mille. Pablo has broken bones many times during his career. Considering this At one point, I asked our team to design a best fashion watch that could withstand the various shocks during a polo match, but the movement had to be visible”.
Realizing that standard crystal could not provide the necessary resistance against the blows of a mallet, the brand’s engineers collaborated with Stettler, a great specialist in the field of sapphire crystal, inspired by the practice of laminated glass for automotive production. The use of this crystal mirror composed of two sapphire crystal mirrors and polyethylene film is the first time in the watchmaking industry. By the way, same as RM…
In the face of the strong shock wave from the impact of the mallet, the glass will crack, but not crack. The glass is treated with UV protection and anti-reflection to protect it from the external environment and is an exclusive patent of Richard Mille.
The case is machined from carbon TPT with serrations of a reinforced structure, an armored case with an astonishing and almost unalterable resistance. Recognized for its excellent resistance to microfractures and microcracks, this material is increasingly used by RM.
Any enemy with whirlwind motion (beyond the gravitational effects it compensates for) is a shock. What is Richard Mille’s solution? Movement suspended by cables. The atypical architecture of the building required the development of two slabs. The first, called the peripheral, is attached to the frame and supports the tensioning mechanism. The second, called the central, is connected to the peripheral plate by cables and contains all the movement’s gear trains as well as the winding mechanism.
The central plate, like a spider in the middle of a spider’s web, rests on 2 braided steel cables with a diameter of 0.27mm. These cables (see photo below) are woven into a three-dimensional structure through 10 pulleys, connected to 4 tensioners. The watchmaker himself puts the cables in tension by turning a splined screw in the center of each tensioner. Richard Mille copy
By ensuring its constant tension, “this pulley system guarantees a perfect balance of the whole. The grade 5 titanium used in the suspended movement and its components (bridges and double bridges) increases rigidity while ensuring a very smooth running of the gear train and optimal shock absorption,” the brand said in its press release.
