Beautiful Foolishness And The Richard Mille RM67-01

In 1906, a gentleman named Okakura Kakuzō published an essay called The Book Of Tea.

In it, he speaks to the West and protests the caricatures they hold of the East. He explores how a distinctly Japanese approach to life shouldn’t be mocked, but instead, regarded as one of the most considered and deliberate in the world. Kakuzō states that the tea ceremony isn’t just another oddity of the East, but a tradition that could teach mutual humility - Something that was lacking in the West at the time.

Teaism or Chadō, as Kakuzō calls it, is a philosophy that goes beyond just pouring and sipping. It embodies a cultural, aesthetic and spiritual approach to life. One that strives to attempt perfection in this wholly imperfect world. It’s a beautiful way of life really. Who knew we could learn so much from leaves and hot water?

There’s one line in his book that resonates deeply with the brand I want to talk about in this story, Richard Mille. Keep their watches in mind when reading.

“Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboo, the fountains are bubbling with delight, and the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”

Although the argument could be made that I need to get a life, reading The Book Of Tea removes any pressure I’ve felt in the past to follow the general opinion of the watch community. The world will continue to spin and the bamboo will continue to grow if I like Richard Mille. Everyone has an opinion, because of their marketing, aesthetics or price. But I think we could all learn a lot from the words of Okakura Kakuzō, things can be foolish and beautiful. Time to put the kettle on.

The Thinking Man’s Richard Mille - The RM67-01

I was 11 years old when the first Richard Mille came out. I barely had a hair on my chest back then (nothing’s changed), and was yet to sink my grubby little fingers into the watch world. When Mr Mille released RM-001, it must have been a punch in the face to the rest of the industry. It was a white gold, tonneau-shaped case with a Voucher derived, manually wound tourbillon movement. Looking back on it today, it still feels like the purest expression of what a Richard Mille should be. Ridiculous, divisive and extreme.

Fast forward a couple of decades and Richard Mille is a powerhouse of marketing, technical design, profit margins and partnerships. There’s nothing else like it.

The spiritual successor to the first Richard Mille is the RM67-01. It’s ultra thin, grade five titanium and is as decadent as a hot fudge sundae. Bringing a purity to the current line the RM67-01 is a future classic. You may think I’m foolish, but I love it because beauty doesn’t have to take itself too seriously.

CALIBRE CRMA6- Ultra Thin, Highly Technical

All RM’s are technically impressive, and the RM67-01 is no exception. The Calibre CRMA6 inside is ultra-thin at 3.6mm and still manages to bring a sense of visual depth to the table, something they were focussed on in development. With micro-blasted and milled sections, it’s more topographical than skeletonised as RM says in their press material. The same can be said for the dial side, it has intricate architecture with an almost brutalist numeral design. A five o’clock vertical date fits well inside a lumed rectangle and at two o’clock a function selector sits for winding, date and hand setting. A very cool feature that removes the guesswork from crown positioning.

Although it’s not their most complex movement, Richard Mille has still managed to innovate and produce a technically interesting calibre with the CRMA6. There’s plenty to get excited about.

Have you ever heard of periodic internal mainspring adhesion? If you have a life you probably haven’t, but don’t worry, I don’t so I’ll enlighten you. Mainspring adhesion is a phenomenon that occurs when the flat blades of a spring stick together, usually magnetically, affecting efficiency and thus, power reserve. The CRMA6’s barrel rotates once every 5 hours (faster than usual) so that pesky spring doesn’t stick to itself like a teenager with a free afternoon. Finishing off the back side is a rotor in solid platinum, because why the fuck not, and an interesting chamfer cut into the crystal to make room for it.

Diamonds Or No Diamonds?

The case of the RM67-01 is the classic RM tonneau shape and takes 68 different stamping processes and 2015 separate machining operations to create. It looks simple from the outside but what I’ve learned from my 34 years on this planet is that simplicity is extremely difficult to achieve. The case curves beautifully at its ends and it has that emblematic three-piece construction that Richard Mille is known for.

This is all well and good, but perhaps the real (hypothetical) question here, is do I go for Diamonds or no Diamonds? I’m the kind of guy that would absolutely wear a baguette diamond covered Richard Mille to Kindergarten pickup, but I fear that my wife wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. I think I’ll have to begrudgingly go for the pure Titanium version. You can’t have it all I guess.

I May Be Foolish, But Richard Mille Is Beautiful

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I’ve fallen in love with this watch for a few months. Initially, I thought I had just been pulled into the Richard Mille hype, but that’s not it, at least not all of it. The intersection, and if I’m honest, contradiction, of a performance-focused, obsolete technology just draws me in.  It’s like owning an air-cooled Porsche 911, a performance car with outdated technology.

Just like the ACF-02 from WRK I wrote about recently, the RM67-01 doesn’t make any promises it cant keep. It’s not a dress watch, a dive watch or even a sports watch. It lives in it’s own category and is unforgiving in it’s philosophy. It’s this attitude that is so appealing, maybe it’s a metaphor for how we should live our lives.

Perhaps it’s foolish of me to lust over a watch like this in my current financial situation but to be honest, I don’t really care. No watch purchase is going to be a decision made with my financial future in mind, it’s going to be made with my heart. We need to let go of this idea that watches need to be any form of practical for them to be justified, you can just love them for what they are - beautiful superfluous technology.

So the lesson here is, as Okakura Kakuzō once said, if you’re going to be foolish, it might as well be over something beautiful.

Cya in the next one.

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