The harmony that is created between the athlete and his faithful timepiece determines a fusion of intents focused on the goal of victory and conquest. Whether it is a playground, a car track, the open sea or the top of a mountain, we can undoubtedly see how sports and watches represent two sides of the same coin.

One of the top players who has made the collaboration with the sports world one of the pillars of the entire production is undoubtedly Richard Mille. 

Since its inception in 1999 until today, the family has never hidden its overwhelmingly sporting character.  Football, Formula 1, Tennis are just some of the most famous collaborations, linking much of the manufacture to partnerships strongly recognized and appreciated by the entire international market.

The avant-garde of Monsieur Richard 

It is useless to hide behind a cashmere thread, the RM world is particular, controversial and sometimes difficult to interpret. We find ourselves in front of the classic son of modernity, rebellious, brilliant and extremely dedicated to study and continuous innovation, so much so that his objects have much more affinity with a performance by Marina Abramovic’ than with a timepiece.  At this point you may be wondering where the genius of the artist lies, and concretely what has he brought to the world of haute horlogerie?

The answer dear friends of IWS, even before in aesthetics or manufacturing, is to be found, in my opinion, in the innovative method that Mille and his collaborators have introduced, going to merge in an exemplary way all the innate ability to listen to the market, so dear to  Jean-Pierre Hagmann, the technical mastery at the service of the needs of François Borgel and the visionary and innovative spirit of Emile Vichet.  The same direct collaboration with well-known names in the world of sport is a clear signal that reveals so much about the savoir faire of the maison.

Collaborations are not limited exclusively to marketing and advertising issues, they go further through a solid partnership aimed at the final  development of the product.  Paraphrasing, this way of doing, is very reminiscent of the typical work flow used in the world of motorsport that provides, after having put the driver under contract, the development on it and with it of all the characteristics of the vehicle that will have to lead to victory in the following season.

Polo and its legend

Although it represents one of the most elegant sports ever, a discipline around which some of the most exclusive and awaited social events of the year revolve, polo is in all respects one of the hardest and most proving disciplines of the entire international sports scene.  The continuous changes of direction, the sudden oscillations, the clash of horses and riders represent forces at play far superior to those found in other sports.

The rules are quite simple: two teams of four players riding horses equipped with bamboo clubs challenge each other without exclusion of blows with the aim of sending the ball into the goal.  The players? Timing, peace of being in the right place at the right time, aptitude for command, physical strength and galloping technique are characteristics that must not be missing to a good rider, if we add to these a good dose of grit and all the Argentine passion of those who grew up in the pampas between horses and asado one of the best players on the planet, the legend Pablo Mac Donough, can only come out.

Legend and avant-garde come together

It’s 2010 and in the brilliant mind of Richard Mille and his entourage runs faster and faster the concrete desire to land in the world of Polo.  The charm and the complexity of the technical challenge represent the official motivations behind these intentions, but the reality of the facts tells another story, built on the basis of perhaps too hasty and often superficial judgments that critics have reserved for the maison in its first decade of production.

It is therefore necessary to diversify, going to take, without distorting oneself, let it be clear, even that slice of the market that is kinder, more polite, I dare say more snobbish, and to do so what better opportunity than to enter the sport of gentlemen par excellence?

Pablo was in England in those days, he had been involved by his friend and prince of Brunei Bahar Bolkiah for a polo match.  It was inside one of the many good dinners that cheered their evenings that Monsieur Richard and Senior Mac Donough met for the first time. It was a stroke of lightning. The two, despite being the first meeting, seem to have known each other for a lifetime. Polo, watchmaking, travel and politics are just some of the arguments at the table. A very special harmony is born between the two, which marks the beginning of one of the most interesting and profitable sport-watch collaborations of recent years. 

Per la For the new partnership nothing is missing: sports discipline, testimonial and team, and what a team gentlemen … to envy the Real Madrid galácticos of Ronaldo, Beckham and Zizou. Prince Bahar Bolkiah of Brunei, the multiple British national champion Max Routledge, the real man who whispered to the horses, the Argentine Alejandro Muzzio, one of the most experienced players on the international scene, and finally the star Pablo Mac Donough.

Research and development

It takes some time, the RM engineers  are not very experienced in the hard world of polo, much less imagine how complex the technical challenge  in which they got into the closet can be… not bad, challenges are made to be overcome, and monsieur Richard knows this well  . The team in the meantime is booming, hand in hand with the increasingly established notoriety of the brand in this world.  

Mac Donough and the boys participate and win some of the most famous and prestigious tournaments on the international scene that fill the calendars of the professional season from May to September: the Harcourt Developments Queen’s Cup, the Guards Polo Club, the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup, the Cowdray Park Polo Club,  the Gold Silver and Bronze Cup in Satogrande, and the Santa Maria Polo Club.

As well as all the other ambassadors of the RM family, the players of the Richard Mille Polo Team also  wear, during the tournaments, the limited edition RM 010  watch “all black“, specifically engineered for the occasion with a  black DLC titanium case  and  red réhaut, black rubber strap with   DLC titanium buckle that pays homage to the colors of the club.

For the insiders it is a busy period, made of study and testing, field research and development in the factory. It is a phase of fundamental importance within  which the meticulous technical research traces a very precise path towards the perfection of the final product, inevitably and rightly passing through the real experiences to which the timepiece will have to undergo to be in all respects considered “polo-proof”.

Consecration

We have seen  the typical work flow in the Richard Mille house:  a sports discipline is chosen, the best athlete of that discipline is put under contract, it is sponsored and with him defined an unbridled R&D campaign aimed at creating a final product as close as possible to perfection in function of the  sports performance for which he is called to make his contribution.

After months of information and data deriving directly from the field, specifically from the tournaments in which Mac Donough and his companions were brilliantly participating, the RM engineers  arrive at the final answer, giving birth to one of the most incredible products on the world watchmaking scene, the RM 053.  It’s 2012, and the RM 053 is presented for the first time at Mac Daonough.

“Many Thanks Pablo, this is the masterpiece made thank to your advices”.  I like to imagine that with these words and the voice broken by emotion, similar to that of a father who entrusts his daughter in marriage, Monsieur Richard delivers to Pablo Mac Donough the fruit of their collaboration.

The object lacks nothing, it contains all the precise indications that Pablo had provided during the previous months. Strength and robustness of the elements, called to face all the unpredictable and violent shocks of the game, blend perfectly with the ingenious deformation of the tonneau case, deliberately armored in titanium carbide characterized by the iconic raised display  windows, one for the tourbillon on which cage  the seconds flow, and the other instead for the hours and minutes, both inclined by 30 ° on the horizontal to facilitate reading in the saddle.

Even the field tests are amazing, so much so that even today, after so many years, Mac Donough’s  words on the RM 053 are as follows: “It’s impressive how  strong this watch is, you can hit it  with the ball, with the bat, with another horse … and every time  I finished a match I said to myself: I should check the clock because I’m sure that this time it was destroyed, then you look at it  and it’s still there, and it still works perfectly after so many years, so many violent blows and so many polo matches together”.

The encore

A few years pass, the collaboration between Richard Mille and Pablo Mac Donough is flourishing and repays the protagonists exactly as from the plans elaborated in that famous English dinner of 2011. The brand is booming and even the notoriety of polo undergoes a significant increase in the international sports scene.  As things stand, an accurate market analysis is certainly not necessary to understand how at this time,  following the good and dear old rule “strike the iron when it is hot” is more than ever an apt strategy.

The technical collaboration resumes, the bar of the genius and the champion are raised a lot, focusing the goal on the creation of a timepiece practically bombproof.  They begin a series of tiring tests, forklift watches that Pablo and his entourage test and try to destroy for weeks, providing the results directly to the RM team of technicians.

Thanks to the intuition of Mac Donough, and probably, I add, to some dangerous expert in medieval torture machines present in the RM engineering team, a machine  for impact resistance tests is adopted for the occasion, created by installing a steel ball at the end of a classic pendulum test equipment, in such a way as to  simulate the violent stresses that can occur during a match.  Not only technique but also heart and ideas are fundamental to the achievement of the result.

“Polo is a strong sport, brutally sincere, it doesn’t hide surprises and it’s exactly how you see it.” 

Pablo Mac Donough

It is thanks to these words of Mac Donough that monsieur Richard comes to life the inspiration to create an object characterized by infinite strength and resistance, without excluding the possibility of admiring and appreciating it from the outside.  At the base of the collaboration there is the same idea that characterized the RM 053 but the concept of realization is exactly the opposite.

If the RM 053 was protected with carbon armor that nothing suggested except the raised viewers of hours and tourbillons, the unborn child must be completely free, clean and transparent, representing in a synthetic and perfect way what is closest to the philosophy of Mac Donough: ” look at me, I’m here, I have no protections, only me, my horse and my goals…”.  It is with these premises that the RM 053-01 comes to life, an impeccable combination of resistance, given its technical characteristics, and brazen virility, typical of those who have nothing to hide.

At first glance the impact is very strong. The case, made of  practically indestructible TBT carbon, acts as a hen  to the very particular structure of cables and pulleys called to keep in suspension the beating heart of this splendid object, a singular architecture specially engineered in order to protect the tourbillon from  shocks and stresses. The use of a glass composed of layers of sapphire alternating with thin layers of polyvinyl, in addition to being an absolute novelty in the world of haute horlogerie, makes it clear that in case of impacts with ball and clubs the glass avoids pulverizing going to damage the movement accordingly.  For all the technical insights click here for the full article.

Conclusions

And even today friends of IWS we have reached the end of our journey. After a deep dive into one of the most incredible collaborations between the world of sport and the world of watches, the time has come, as usual at the end of every self-respecting trip,  to take stock, and grasp in a deeper way the meaning of this partnership.

Reconnecting to what has been developed in the previous paragraphs, and obviously net of personal tastes which matter just as much as anyone else’s, I personally find superb as visionary not only the ability but also the way in which Richard Mille does haute horlogerie, incredibly managing to put at the center of his project not only the ability to listen to the market, relying on ambassadors  recognized and loved, but also the supreme technical mastery combined with a spirit continuously looking for innovation.

When the philosophy of these projects merges with strong personalities, of figures such as Pablo Mac Donough, some of the most beautiful works of art ever seen in the entire international watchmaking scene can come to life.

If you want to learn more about Richard Mille and their partnerships visit their official website.

Translated by: Enrico Della Guerra