Richard Mille has unveiled a very unique tourbillon mechanical watch he has created in the form of the RM 68-01 Kongo which has been finished with unique Street Art from Kongo A.K.A Cyril Phan.
The latest mechanical watches have been in development for the past year and for the first time the artist has transferred his normally extremely large artwork down to the minute workings of the watch.
We worked closely with Julien and Salvatore of the Richard Mille R&D team. First, we selected an asymmetrical case that added extra punch. Then I started experimenting under the supervision of Laurent Paroz, head of decoration at Renaud & Papi: stencils, masking… The paints also had to be tested—how well they adhered to the titanium movement, and how much they weighed, so as not to throw the pieces out of balance or impede the tourbillon mechanism!
It took the better part of a year to perfect a process and design the necessary protection so that the gears wouldn’t get paint on them, the special tweezers for treating the pieces without touching them and microscopic letter stencils, barely visible to the naked eye, cut from incredibly thin sheets of metal. I also employed very special pens, an airbrush system that deposits paint drop by drop, like for tattoos, but with infinitely small heads, in order to apply this particular paint on the metal surfaces.
For more information on the new Street Art RM 68-01 Kongo Tourbillon Mechanical Watch jump over to the official Richard Mille website for details by following the link below.
