Luxury Insider - The Online Luxury Magazine

The RM009 marks a departure from traditional luxury watch design. Although its case bears the distinctive tonneau shape characteristic of Richard Mille watches, one immediately notices how the matte-gray ALUSIC case absorbs light instead of reflecting it.

On the wrist, the entire watch is discreetly understated. On closer inspection, one notices that the entire movement appears suspended in mid-air.

Indeed, the look of the watch evokes impressions of cutting-edge engineering, and rightly so, given the technology that has been employed in its creation.

The next thing one notices upon wearing the watch is its weight – or the lack thereof. Taking a cue from F1 development processes, Richard Mille achieved this lightness through a bottom-up approach to sourcing for the lightest materials for every watch component.

The case is usually the heaviest part of any watch, and no effort was spared to find a material with the right mix of lightness and strength. The trail ended when Richard Mille found ALUSIC (Aluminum AS7G-Silicium-Carbide), a material used in space satellites.

In terms of texture and physical resemblance, ALUSIC is more akin to stone than metal. It possesses great strength and resistance to wear, yet is extremely light.

However, these qualities also make it difficult to manufacture, as a result of which the cost of producing ALUSIC is many times that of platinum.

But as the RM009 is undoubtedly the brand's flagship, it is easy to understand why Mille adopted a no-compromise approach to its construction.