Richard Mille 19-02 Flower Tourbillon

A visit to the Richard Mille booth at SIHH is always a barely concealed pleasure—both to admire the watches and the hostesses, who never fail to make an impression.

Richard Mille chose to present only a handful of pieces, in order to sprinkle new releases throughout the year. One of the display cases on the stand drew crowds of visitors who had come to witness a phenomenon that occurs every five minutes.

That phenomenon is the opening of the delicate petals of a magnolia flower.

This magnolia is the centrepiece of the new Richard Mille RM 19-02 Tourbillon Fleur. The watch revisits the tradition of miniature arts and automaton flowers that earned several watchmaking houses renown among crowned heads across Europe and the world.

Specimens from the Magnoliaceae family appeared more than 95 million years ago. It is certainly the magnolia’s singularity that guided Richard Mille’s choice.

At 7 o’clock on the dial, the five petals of the 18k gold magnolia flower enclose a flying tourbillon. Every five minutes—or by pressing the pusher at 9 o’clock—the magnolia blooms and the stamen, in the form of a gem-set tourbillon, rises by 1 mm to perform its ballet.

This feat requires energy, in addition to the 36-hour power reserve. A mechanism is therefore entirely dedicated to this function and powered by a second barrel.

The baseplate and bridges are made of grade 5 titanium, an alloy (titanium, aluminium and vanadium) that is extremely rigid and highly resistant to corrosion, notably used in aerospace.

The tonneau case is water-resistant to 50 metres. One missing detail—absent from the press kit and not mentioned during the press conference—still stands out. We are, all the same, looking at a magnificently gem-set case, but that has evidently become too “normal” to be worth mentioning (?).

Finally, rarer than magnolias, the Richard Mille RM 19-02 Tourbillon Fleur will be available in only 30 examples.