Watch Paparazzi

Royal Joaan Bin Hamad Al Thani spotted wearing Richard Mille

Sheikh Joaan Bin Hamad Al Thani, President of the Qatar Olympic Committee and one of the Gulf's most quietly formidable watch collectors, was recently photographed wearing the Richard Mille RM27-04 'TitaCarb' — the fourth and latest chapter in the brand's ongoing collaboration with Rafael Nadal, and arguably the most technically ambitious of the series.

The RM27-04 is built around a manual-winding tourbillon movement, the calibre RM27-04, housed in a case fabricated from TitaCarb — a proprietary composite that bonds titanium with a carbon matrix to produce a material of exceptional rigidity and low mass. The case measures 47.77 mm × 39.74 mm and weighs just a few grams complete with strap, yet the movement is rated to survive impacts of up to 12,000 g, a specification verified during Nadal's match play at Roland-Garros. The baseplate and bridges are constructed from Carbon TPT and Quartz TPT layered at alternating angles, giving the dial its signature striated aesthetic. Production is strictly limited to 50 numbered examples worldwide.

Within the Richard Mille RM27 lineage — which began with the RM27-01 in 2013 and progressed through iterations in 2016 and 2018 — each reference has pushed shock resistance and weight reduction further. The RM27-04 represents the culmination of that programme, introducing TitaCarb as a case material for the first time in the Nadal series and refining the cable-suspended movement architecture that defines the collection. Collectors regard the full RM27 set as one of the defining modern collaborations in watchmaking, combining genuine technical innovation with a high-profile sporting narrative.

Sheikh Joaan's affinity for high-complication, limited-production pieces is well documented among Gulf watch circles. As a head of the Qatar Olympic Committee, his proximity to elite sport gives the Nadal collaboration particular resonance — this is not a watch worn for aesthetics alone, but one whose engineering credentials align with his institutional world.

At a UK list price of approximately £1,000,000, the RM27-04 enters the market at a level reserved for genuine ultra-high-net-worth collectors. With only 50 examples in existence and a waiting list that never materialised into open availability, grey-market premiums are effectively academic — transactions occur privately and discreetly, often at figures that reflect the piece's near-unobtainable status rather than any published retail benchmark.