Richard Mille has just presented the new RM35-03 in collaboration with Rafael Nadal, the Spanish tennis legend. The watch incorporates the case features of the last made together, but with a completely new caliber. Read on to discover RM’s butterfly effect!
The partnership between Richard Mille and Nadal
Just 1 year ago, the Maison and the famous tennis player celebrated 10 years of collaboration by presenting the hand-wound RM27-04 Tourbillon to the world. As Richard Mille says, at the beginning it was only a professional relationship, nothing more, but over the years it has transformed into a true friendship, which has allowed both of them to develop unique watches of their kind. Since the first watch launched in 2001 (which you can find out here), Richard Mille has completely revolutionized the watch industry.
The new RM35-03
Now let’s focus on the new RM35-03 Rafael Nadal “Butterfly Effect”. What’s new?
Primarily it is not a Tourbillon. Those of the series with reference RM27 adopted one, while all those with reference number 35 (therefore RM035, 35-01, 35-02) did not. The calibers inside a Richard Mille Rafa Nadal timepiece have three fundamental characteristics: robustness, precision and resistance to strong impacts.
Aesthetically speaking, the case incorporates the aesthetics of the RM27-04, which in turn is inspired by that of the 35-01 and 02. The RM35-03 is offered in two versions: one in blue Quartz TPT® with the middle in white Quartz TPT®, the other in white Quartz TPT® with the middle part in Carbon TPT®.
The rubber straps feature two different colors for each model, from blue to white.
The butterfly effect of the RMAL2
According to the Treccani encyclopedia, the butterfly effect is a “term commonly used to indicate the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions exhibited by non-linear dynamic systems […]” … ok let’s move on to a simpler description. When we talk about the butterfly effect, we usually use the example of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil causes a tornado in Texas, so how a small thing (flapping of wings) causes consequences on a much larger scale.
Richard Mille dubbed the RM35-03 “butterfly effect” for various reasons, including both the construction of the rotor and the functionality associated with it. When wearing an automatic watch, the movement of the wrist affects the amount of energy the caliber receives from the oscillation of the rotor, in turn affecting the accuracy of the timepiece. If you wear a watch to play sports, the risk is that the rotor will turn so much that the mechanism will overload, thus damaging it.
A special butterfly rotor has been developed for the watch, capable of giving the best performance according to the mode of use, from normal to sporty. The operation is very simple and it is useless to get into technicalities: in normal mode the rotor takes the shape of a crescent, to allow the mechanism to load regularly; in sport mode (activated by clicking the button at 7-8) the crescent is divided into two parts, taking the shape of the wings of a butterfly. In this position, the ability of the rotor to move while doing sports is considerably reduced, thus avoiding overloading it. The video below is very helpful in understanding it.
At 2-3 o’clock, on the other hand, there is the classic function selector, which allows you to decide in which position the crown is: winding (W), neutral (N) and hand setting (H).
Conclusions
A new chapter is added in the collaboration between two world stars, Richard Mille and Rafa Nadal. Overall we are happy that space has been given again to the reference RM35, which has been standing still for some time. From an aesthetic point of view, I’m not a big fan of the 27-04 and 35-03 cases, but it varies from personal taste, while the choice of white quartz as a material is excellent, because as we have seen on the market, it may attract a much greater number of people.
The RM35-03 Automatic Rafael Nadal has a list price of $220,000 and is not a limited edition.
What do you think about it?
For more info, keep following the IWS Instagram profile.
