Footballer Willian spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Willian Borges Da Silva, the Brazilian winger who spent seven seasons at Chelsea FC becoming one of the Premier League's most consistent wide players, was photographed wearing the Richard Mille RM55 'Bubba Watson' — a watch that sits at the crossroads of extreme sports engineering and streetwear-adjacent luxury that defines the Richard Mille brand's cultural footprint in professional football.

The Richard Mille RM55 was developed in collaboration with two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson and first presented in 2012. Its hand-wound tourbillon calibre, the RMUL2, runs at 21,600 vph and delivers approximately 48 hours of power reserve. The movement features a variable geometry rotor and a baseplate and bridges constructed from grade 5 titanium, delivering exceptional rigidity at minimal weight. The tonneau-shaped case — available in white gold, red gold, and titanium variants — measures 49.94 mm × 42.00 mm and is just 13.07 mm thick, with a sapphire crystal front and caseback offering full visibility of the architecture inside.

The RM55 was purpose-engineered to withstand the violent rotational torque of Watson's golf swing, with Richard Mille claiming the watch can absorb forces of up to 5,000 g. That same shock resistance translates naturally to contact sports, which partly explains why the model found a following among footballers, basketball players, and boxers well beyond its original golfing context. The 'Bubba Watson' designation covers several limited and non-limited references, each maintaining the core RMUL2 architecture with cosmetic and material variations.

Willian's affinity for Richard Mille mirrors a broader trend in Premier League dressing rooms during the 2010s, where the brand's aggressive case geometry and transparent dials became a marker of status among top earners. As a regular starter for Chelsea under José Mourinho and Antonio Conte, Willian was firmly in the bracket of players for whom a £70,000 list price represents discretionary spending.

On the grey market, the Richard Mille RM55 'Bubba Watson' has historically traded above retail, with white gold references commanding premiums in the £80,000–£100,000 range depending on condition and paperwork. Richard Mille's controlled distribution and sustained celebrity association keep secondary market demand firm, making the RM55 not merely a status piece but a reasonably defensible asset.