STYLE Edit: Richard Mille unveils its first women’s sports watch, the RM 07-04 Automatic – the covetable timepiece is made in 6 versions inspired by 6 female athletes, from Nelly Korda to Nafi Thiam

Mar 30 , 2023

The RM 07-04 timepiece in mauve. Photo: Richard Mille

Richard Mille, the Swiss luxury watchmaker renowned for its commitment to pushing boundaries in design, has unveiled its first women’s sports watch, the RM 07-04, inspired by 6 female athletes

Among those international sportswomen are racing car drivers Aurora Straus and Margot Laffite, golfer Nelly Korda, heptathlete Nafi Thiam, high jumper Yuliya Levchenko and Olympics champ Ester Ledecká

The dynamic world of top level sport has always acted as a prime source of inspiration for Richard Mille. The demands of the high performance sporting environment mirror the Swiss luxury watchmaker’s commitment to constantly pushing boundaries – in technology, performance and aesthetics alike.

Now, with its first women’s sports watch, the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport, Richard Mille extends the range of its sporting inspiration, collaborating with six leading athletes, whose experiences were used to develop the particular attributes of each of the six versions of the watch.

Like many other of the brand’s watches, the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport presents an open-worked face to the world, while at its heart beats the new calibre CRMA8, a highly compact, skeletonised automatic movement featuring hours, minutes and a function selector.

Its baseplate and bridges are made from ultra-tough grade-five titanium, and the movement was extensively tested to ensure that it is capable of withstanding incredible amounts of force: up to 5,000Gs of acceleration. Despite that strength, this is also an extraordinarily light watch, tipping the scales at just 36 grams – including its Velcro strap.

The movement’s most technologically sophisticated function comes in the form of its function selector complication, which allows the wearer to toggle between neutral, winding and time setting positions with a press of a Quartz TPT pusher at four o’clock. The chosen function is indicated on the dial by a hand that sits between five and six o’clock.

The RM 07-04 is the brand’s first ladies’ sports watch and, appropriately enough, six leading sportswomen have inspired its six different versions.

The six versions of the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport feature cases in a range of materials and colours. One comes in black Carbon TPT, while the other five – all in Quartz TPT – come in cream white, mauve, salmon pink, green and dark blue.

The athletes who inspired these six renditions of the watch are all – like Richard Mille – leaders in their respective fields. There’s Aurora Straus, for example, a US racing car driver who made headlines when she turned pro aged just 19, becoming North America’s only female teenage professional driver.

Then there’s Margot Laffite, a more established star of the racetrack who’s equally well known in her native France as a much-loved TV motorsport presenter. American golfer Nelly Korda, meanwhile – the daughter of two champion tennis players – has won seven LPGA Tour events and been ranked No 1 in the world.