Richard Mille’s New Bon-Bon Collection Showcases The Sweet Side Of Watchmaking

BAZAAR speaks to Richard Mille’s Technical Director of its Women’s Collection, Cécile Guenat, about the brand’s new Bon-Bon collection

Tell us more about the new collection.

I wanted a theme, an idea, that you can put colours and fun shapes to. And I had, in my mind, this crown from the RM 07-01, which looks a bit like a small cake and also reminds me of liquorice. So, voila! Very quickly, everything started to fall in place. And when you look at the collection, you’ll see that all the coloured ceramics we used in the collection are colours that already exist in our palette. [This collection] is still very Richard Mille; it’s just another way to express the brand.

What was the reaction of your colleagues when you first presented this idea internally?

I came with a mood board that explained what I wanted to do and I told them that I was going to show them all the things that we could do with our collections for the next few years. And when I showed it to them, Richard [Mille] was like: “This is it; you should really do this; let’s go in this direction.” At that time, I didn’t have any drawings. Just a board with images of candies, the crown, the settings, materials and colours; that’s it.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when producing this collection?

We had several challenges because the collection is a mix of métiers d’art and it’s very technical—like getting the right sugar effect on the candied fruit pieces, which is done by hand. For all the little candy pieces, we had to work on getting the right thickness because you have limited space in a watch and [if any of the elements on the dial] touch the hands, they can’t move. So every piece [in the collection] is unique and has a story to tell.

What has the reaction to the collection been like so far? Good or bad?

From what my colleagues tell me, it’s quite good. Of course, there are people on the internet who are totally shocked and devastated and I can understand that. But this is Richard Mille: You either like or you don’t like; it’s like that. And it’s not a bad thing to have a bad reaction. It’s a reaction so that’s good and it keeps things interesting.

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