“One in a million.” It’s an ideal that most of us strive for yet very few achieve.
It’s fair to say, however, that if you’re sporting Richard Mille’s RM-018 Meteorite watch on your wrist, you’ve probably achieved one in a million status. Commissioned in partnership with the historic French jewelry house Boucheron, this is a timepiece that completely satisfies its seven-figure luxury status.
via The Richest
Making the Meteorite Watch
For starters, this distinguished timepiece has a price tag of exactly that figure, $1 million. This number makes perfect sense when you consider the origins of this limited edition luxury watch, of which only 30 pieces were released.
The RM-018 is partially made of chondrites, sourced from meteorites that have fallen to earth. It obviously requires some effort to find and recover such materials, but they’re also extremely fragile to use in the creation process. This emphasizes the painstaking craftmanship that Richard Mille dedicated to making a watch of this caliber. The wheels are where the chondrites come into play for this piece, requiring a fine touch and no small amount of engineering talent. All of this is encased in 18-karat white gold, which creates a beautiful contrast of fragility and strength.
Mille is of course a connoisseur when it comes to luxury watches. Famed for using precious stones in his ‘Tourbillon’ product line, the Meteorite watch takes his desire to push boundaries to another level. Or perhaps another world would be more accurate.
via HuffPo
Timeless Luxury
Behind every luxury accessory lies a story, a compelling tale that adds to the allure of the item. To the complexity of its construction, the Meteorite watch adds the mystery of its materials.
The chondrites used to craft the RM-018 can contain hundreds of organic compounds, often chemically unique to many different environments. What this means in terms of a spellbinding story is that this one complete timepiece brings together time, space, and place. If the air of mystery created by having interstellar elements on your wrist isn’t enough, imagine being able to explain to admirers that your watch spans not only space, but time itself!
As technology drives the function of telling the time into almost every device that we own, the exclusivity of a piece like the Meteorite watch is only further enhanced. The classic look that a finely crafted traditional wrist watch offers the wearer is another reminder of the timeless quality that such items can hold. In the same breath, the story of this particular piece is one that will cause even the most committed techie to pause and reconsider his position.
As a craft, watchmaking itself also looks both backwards and forwards. Dating back to the 16th century, it’s a profession that is rooted in the past, yet the watchmaker’s focus remains fixed on the future and increasing the complexity of the next timepiece. Adding deeper complications that push beyond hours, minutes and seconds has always been the maker’s goal.
The Meteorite watch embodies these qualities and is indeed worthy of the label ‘one in a million’.
