Watch Paparazzi

Rapper Huang Zitao spotted wearing Richard Mille

Huang Zitao was recently photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM011 Felipe Massa Flyback Chronograph in a striking configuration of blue ceramic and titanium with white and orange accents — a combination that signals one of the final evolutions of this long-running sports-chronograph line before the reference was eventually retired.

The Richard Mille RM011 Felipe Massa launched in 2007 as the brand's first flyback chronograph, developed in partnership with the Brazilian Formula 1 driver and built to withstand the brutal g-forces of a race cockpit. The movement at its core is the calibre RMAC2, an automatic manufacture unit featuring a variable-geometry rotor that adjusts winding efficiency based on wrist activity — a detail that reflects Richard Mille's motorsport-informed engineering philosophy. The flyback function allows the chronograph to be reset and restarted with a single push of the 10 o'clock pusher, eliminating the conventional stop-reset-restart sequence. Complementing this is an annual calendar with oversized date display and a 60-minute countdown function, all legible through the characteristic skeletonized dial architecture.

The blue ceramic and titanium variant shown on Huang Zitao was introduced in 2016 as a limited edition, and its white-and-orange color palette serves as a chromatic bridge to the later RM11-05, giving this piece a specific historical position within the Felipe Massa lineage. Ceramic cases in Richard Mille production are labour-intensive and reject rates are high, which contributes to the genuine scarcity of these configurations beyond mere edition numbers.

Huang Zitao, the Chinese rapper and former member of K-pop group EXO, has built a visible record of serious watch collecting, gravitating consistently toward technically complex, visually assertive references. The RM011 Felipe Massa suits his profile precisely — it reads as an athlete's tool watch while carrying legitimate horological substance.

On the secondary market, ceramic-case RM011 Felipe Massa limited editions command sustained premiums. Retail on late-series limited variants sat in the $150,000–$180,000 range depending on configuration, and grey-market trading for the blue ceramic edition has consistently exceeded that figure, reflecting both the reference's discontinued status and durable collector demand for the Felipe Massa name within Richard Mille's catalogue.