RM 07-01 Red Quartz TPT

Quartz TPT is built from silica filaments a fraction of a millimetre thick, laid at alternating angles, saturated with resin and cured under pressure. The red pigment runs through the material, not over it, which is why the striations are different on every case Richard Mille produces.

The RM 07-01 is the smaller automatic tonneau, and it is the reference that converted a generation of collectors who had assumed Richard Mille only made oversized watches. On the wrist it disappears in a way the RM 011 never will.

The skeletonised carbon baseplate underneath the red frame is the same architecture the brand uses in its chronograph calibres, with a variable-geometry rotor that adapts winding to the wearer's activity.

Allocation, not price, is the barrier on these. Boutique availability is effectively nil and configuration determines everything on the secondary market. Red Quartz TPT is among the most requested.

The case is the whole story. Look at it in daylight and the layers move.