Watch Paparazzi

Singer Will Pan spotted wearing Richard Mille

Will Pan, one of Taiwan's most recognisable pop figures, was recently photographed wearing the Richard Mille RM52-05 Tourbillon, the ultra-limited collaboration piece developed alongside musician and cultural entrepreneur Pharrell Williams. With only 30 examples ever produced, spotting one in the wild — let alone on a celebrity wrist — is a genuinely rare event.

The RM52-05 is built around a skeletonised manual-winding tourbillon movement, the calibre RM52-05, beating at 21,600 vph with a power reserve of approximately 70 hours. The baseplate and bridges are constructed from grade 5 titanium, but the defining element is the case material: metallic brown cermet. Cermet — a portmanteau of ceramic and metal — is a high-performance composite typically found in aerospace and cutting-tool manufacturing. Richard Mille's decision to apply it to watchmaking resulted in a case of extraordinary hardness, scratch resistance, and a distinctive warm brown tone that reads entirely differently from conventional ceramic or titanium.

Pharrell Williams, long associated with Virginia Williams and his own Billionaire Boys Club aesthetic, reportedly had direct input into the colour palette and the skeletonised dial architecture. The result is one of the most coherent artist collaborations in Richard Mille's history — not merely a co-signed dial, but a rethinking of material language from the case outward. Among collectors, the RM52-05 ranks alongside the RM52-01 Skull and RM52-02 as a centrepiece of the Tourbillon Skull family, though its Pharrell connection and cermet case give it a distinct identity.

Will Pan's taste in watches has never been understated. The Taiwanese singer, who built his career on a fusion of R&B, hip-hop, and Mandopop, has long cultivated an image that straddles streetwear and luxury. Wearing an RM52-05 reads as a deliberate statement — this is not a watch acquired for its investment profile, but for its cultural weight.

On the grey market, the RM52-05 Pharrell commands prices well into seven figures, reflecting both the 30-piece limitation and the sustained demand for meaningful Richard Mille collaborations. The UK list price was reported at £750,000, placing it firmly among the brand's most expensive references at retail — a number that, for this particular watch, now represents a floor rather than a ceiling.