Athlete Julija Levčenko spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Yuliya Levchenko, the Ukrainian high jumper and Richard Mille brand ambassador, was recently photographed wearing the Richard Mille RM 037 'Black Lip' — a 34mm timepiece that sits firmly among the most technically complex women's watches in production. The sighting is no casual flex; as a brand partner, Levchenko's relationship with the Geneva-based manufacture runs deep, and the RM 037 'Black Lip' is precisely the kind of statement piece Richard Mille reserves for its closest athletic allies.

The RM 037 was introduced as Richard Mille's dedicated women's sports watch, built around the brand's signature skeletonized architecture. This 'Black Lip' variant takes its name from the exotic material at its core: TZP black ceramic, a tetragonal zirconia polycrystal compound that achieves a Vickers hardness of approximately 1,200 HV — significantly tougher than the alumina ceramics found in more conventional luxury sports watches. The 34mm case pairs the ceramic middle case with a caseband crafted in satin-finished 5N red gold, a warmer, more saturated rose gold alloy, while polished pillars provide structural contrast. The movement — the calibre CRMA2 — is an automatic skeletonized manufacture movement with hours, minutes, seconds, date, and a function selector, all visible through the characteristic tonneau-shaped sapphire crystal.

Among collectors, the RM 037 occupies a specific and well-regarded niche. Richard Mille's women's complications are produced in extremely limited numbers, and exotic-material variants like the 'Black Lip' rarely appear on the secondary market. The combination of TZP ceramic with 5N gold hardware is a pairing the manufacture revisits sparingly, which drives persistent demand well above retail on the grey market.

Levchenko's athletic credentials make her an apt ambassador for a brand that has built its identity on the intersection of elite sport and haute horlogerie. Her gold medal at the 2017 European U23 Athletics Championships in high jump — an event demanding explosive precision — mirrors the mechanical philosophy behind the RM 037 itself: maximum performance within a tightly constrained structure.

At a retail price in the region of $250,000 USD, the Richard Mille RM 037 'Black Lip' is not a watch that enters the market quietly. Grey-market values track closely to that figure, reflecting both scarcity and sustained collector appetite for Richard Mille's ceramic-and-gold combinations.