GEMSETTING
A New Language
Throughout history, diamonds and coloured gemstones have served to adorn objects, including jewellery and watches. At Richard Mille, gemsetting is guided by a quest for beauty, technical mastery and emotional resonance. Stones are more than decoration—they affirm their place as constitutive elements of the watch, on par with case design, materials, or the calibre’s architecture.
Precious and decorative stones recompose the minimalist contours of the brand’s cases to join up in imaginary constellations or conjure the silhouette of a talisman, an animal, or a symbolic figure. At times they even penetrate the sanctum of the movement, its very architecture. The watch thus becomes a powerful work of art, forged from an unprecedented conjunction of creativity, gems and unusual materials.
20 years of adventurous creative and technical exploration
The first of the decorative arts explored in depth at Richard Mille, gemsetting embodies the brand’s holistic approach, captivating an audience of insiders in search of ever more exclusive creations. Since 2005, when the RM 007 was released, the brand has explored the creative potential of gemsetting, particularly bead setting and invisible techniques. The unique geometry of Richard Mille cases constitutes a first challenge for the gemsetter. Whether tonneau-shaped, round or rectangular, their arched silhouettes and sophisticated pillars demand exceptional know-how and uncompromising craftsmanship. Sculpting each cavity with precision to the dimensions of the individual stone, the artisan brings to life a setting that bathes every curve of the case in brilliant light.
When Precious Stones Become Structure
Even then, gems had made a place for themselves at the heart of the mechanism. Affirming their role as architectural elements, they spark complex emotions born of unexpected pairings of material and colour. Diamond with ornamental stones, gold with titanium and more. In 2008, the RM 018 Tourbillon Boucheron illustrated this daring orientation, using stone to make gear wheels, a triumph of master that required over four years of development. The following year saw the RM 019 Tourbillon reaffirmed this novel synergy of watchmaking and jewellery techniques with a movement baseplate carved in black onyx, a breathtakingly delicate operation that the brand successfully completed.
Since 2015, the brand has given free rein to creativity, extending and applying traditional expertise to technical materials that are notoriously difficult to work. The arrival of Cécile Guenat as Head of Design and Development also marked a new chapter, paving the way for every more powerful and expressive new creations. A graduate of the Geneva University of Art and Design, Cécile Guenat transcends distinctions between haute horlogerie and fine jewellery. Like the forms and materials of her artistic vocabulary, precious stones have gradually brought unprecedented brilliance to Carbon TPT®, cutting-edge ceramics and sapphire itself.
Firmly establishing this contemporary synthesis of genres are the RM 71-01 Talisman Automatic Tourbillon (Richard Mille’s first in-house automatic tourbillon calibre) and the RM 07-02 Sapphire Automatic, whose case is entirely crafted of pink sapphire. For its part, the RM 71-02 Talisman Tourbillon constitutes a creative manifesto, celebrating the energy and glamour of the 1970s’ Disco era in a riot of precious stones.
The result—unswervingly innovative, vibrant and revolutionary—was a new foundation, one that heralded the RM HJ-01, a first chapter in the haute joaillerie collection at Richard Mille. This watch breaks new ground, cutting across the realms of traditional high jewellery, fine arts and haute horlogerie.
The four unique pieces of this collection revisit the tonneau case concept with bold lines in striking colours. Ruby, blue sapphire, violet sapphire and emerald complement each other, with variations in setting technique from bezels and bead setting to snow settings.
Unleashing creativity and achieving the impossible thanks to engineering
At Richard Mille, creativity drives innovation and technology relentlessly pursues beauty. The setting process becomes even more complex when it involves the technical materials like Carbon TPT®, sapphire or ceramics favoured at Richard Mille.
The brand’s technical experience in milling these materials, amassed over many years, made it possible to develop new setting techniques. Minute cavities are carved out using a CNC machine (or a laser in the case of sapphire) with margins of error around a single micron. The gemsetter then inserts the tiny gold claws that will hold each stone.
The launch of an in-house gemsetting workshop in June of 2019 attests the brand’s ambition and commitment: to forever push the limits of this hallowed craft, expanding know-how to achieve the technically impossible expand the realm of possibility.
Discover the history of gemsetting at Richard Mille on YouTube.