Richard Mille RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat

Flat Lines: Richard Mille Presents the RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat

The brand has revived its original rectangular model and given it a skeletonized new calibre. Here’s the skinny.

By Rhonda Riche
Editor-At-Large

The term “brutalism” is being bandied about a lot these days. Originally associated with the post-war, poured concrete minimalist style of architecture, the aesthetic is having a cultural revival thanks to the Oscar-nominated flick The Brutalist and collector-favorite watches, such as the B/1 by Toledano & Chan and the Audemars Piguet [Re]Master02.

Now, Richard Mille is playing with the geometric angles and planes (and the super-thin silhouettes) of this mid-century design movement with the new RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat, a reinterpretation of its original rectangular RM 016 featuring the new in-house Calibre CRMA9 automatic movement and a stripped-down, open-worked edifice.
 

Building Blocks

While the RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat reads as a Richard Mille, it is quite distinct from anything else in the catalog, including its predecessor, the RM 016.

These two new versions of the Extraflat have been stripped down to show off the materials (the tripartite case is made of either grade 5 titanium or a new-to-RM terracotta-colored quartz TPT) and the refinement of the movement. But the boldest feature of the RM 16-02 is its skeletonized dial.
 

The lines of most openwork calibres tend to frame the circular shapes of the gears supported by horizontal bridgework. The strong visual character of these Extraflat models comes from a slightly fractured lattice of interlaced forms that the brand says is meant to suggest a labyrinth that draws the eye deeper and deeper into the design.
 

Another optical innovation of the RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat is the hour markers. They appear as a thread-like decal that looks like it’s weaving through the maze of the movement. And it sports a slightly smaller, 45.6mm x 36mm wide, 9.5mm thick case size for a more comfortable fit.
 

Skeleton Crew

Super thin watches aren’t new to Richard Mille (at the time of writing, The Richard Mille RM UP-01 is the world’s second-thinnest timepiece). However, knowing this doesn’t make the Calibre CRMA9 any less magical because while the Extraflat line has been around for a decade, the Maison never stopped innovating.

The time-only, automatic Calibre CRMA9 joins the catalog as the 15th member of the manufacture’s in-house family of movements. Designed to complement the RM 16-02’s construction, the brand’s engineers describe its cutaway structure as a “tangle of titanium” meant to allow light into the movement.
 

So, while it might look fractious, every element is meant to favor efficiency. Richard Mille’s engineers have introduced an entirely new silhouette for the oscillating weight, fashioned in platinum and fitted with two grade 5 titanium inertia blocks. The bidirectional rotor is mounted on ceramic ball bearings for optimized winding of the 50-hour power reserve.
 

This mechanism leans in on the angular essentialism of brutalism thanks to a skeletonized baseplate in micro-blasted grade 5 titanium with a grey electro-plasma coating covering the entire visible surface of the watch. The style seems spare, with the milling and finishing of its 67 openings of varying sizes and the chamfering of edges, which required almost 2 hours of milling per plate.
 

The question is, who is the RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat for? Nobody would ever accuse Richard Mille of being stodgy, but refreshing one of its more accessible models with a more modern one should appeal to a more fashion-forward demographic.

Pricing & Availability

The RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat in grade 5 titanium is priced at $134,000, and the Terracotta Quartz TPT version is $156,000. For more information, visit Richard Mille’s website.

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Anatomy of the RM 16-02 Automatic Extraflat -Terracotta and white Quartz TPT® — RICHARD MILLE