Richard Mille is certainly a very resourceful brand, with a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to surprise. Nothing is off-limits. After exploring the domains of motor sport, golf and polo, adding precious gems in the shape of spiders, dragons and skulls, venturing into extreme complications and survival watches – and that’s not even the half of it – we now have watch designs based on sweets. The Bonbons collection may be a whimsical, quirky, confident and entertaining project, but it is anything but a joke. Creating a watch is a bit like baking a cake. It works because it’s based on science.
The collection comprises ten different models, each produced in a run of thirty. Four of them are called the Douceurs. The subjects are marshmallow, liquorice, lollipops and cupcakes, and the watches have dials to match the sweet treats in question. Their enamelled textures (or black chrome titanium for the liquorice), imitate those of the sweets. The pink, yellow and green marshmallow looks particularly soft and squishy. These impressions are strengthened by the effect of the brightly coloured TZP ceramic cases, used throughout the collection.
The six other models are the Fruits, and they are made with a TPT Carbon bezel and caseback, and a TPT Quartz caseband in vivid hues. The dials feature an arrangement of motifs that look as if they had been grabbed by the handful from a candy jar. Small sweets made of hand-painted metal are scattered around the openworked dials.
All ten watches are based on three existing models, injected with a massive dose of sugar and youthful frivolity. The RM 07-03, RM 38-01 and RM 16-01 provide a backdrop worthy of any sweet shop. Anyone struggling to see Richard Mille in these watches merely has to look at the cases, the movements, the skeletonisation technique, the choice and mastery of colour, the materials and the use of various kinds of enamelling. It’s as if a talented chef suddenly decided to have a go at desserts. Even if he’d never attempted them before, his technique, his creativity, his hand, would be obvious.
