Watch Paparazzi

Bodyguard Abdul Aziz Al-faghm spotted wearing Richard Mille

Colonel Abdul Aziz Al-Faghm, the high-profile personal bodyguard to Saudi Arabia's King Salman, was recently photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM 27-02 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal — one of only 50 examples ever made. It is a sighting that underscores the watch's quiet but formidable presence in the upper echelons of Gulf power circles, where horological choices are rarely accidental.

The Richard Mille RM 27-02 was introduced as the third collaboration between the Geneva-based manufacture and tennis legend Rafael Nadal, following the RM 27-01. Its central engineering achievement is a tourbillon cage suspended within the case by a network of ultra-fine cables, a construction that gives the movement exceptional shock resistance rated to 10,000 g — a figure validated in partnership with Nadal's on-court punishment during Roland Garros. The case itself is fabricated from NTPT Carbon, Richard Mille's proprietary filament-wound composite material that layers carbon fibers at varying orientations to produce its distinctive marbled grain pattern. The manual-winding caliber RMUL3 operates at 21,600 vph and offers approximately 70 hours of power reserve. The movement architecture is skeletonized throughout, with grade 5 titanium and Carbon TPT structural components keeping total weight negligible.

Among serious collectors, the RM 27-02 occupies a specific and coveted position. Its 50-piece limitation, combined with the genuine engineering narrative behind the shock-resistance specification, distinguishes it from Richard Mille pieces that trade primarily on celebrity association. Auction results have reflected this consistently, with examples achieving well above retail at major sales. It is the kind of reference that rarely surfaces publicly and almost never becomes available through conventional retail channels.

Colonel Al-Faghm is one of the most recognizable figures in Saudi royal protection, a man whose professional environment demands both discretion and readiness. His choice of a watch engineered around resilience — albeit at the haute horlogerie level — reads as more than coincidental. The RM 27-02 is, in its own way, built for high-stakes performance.

The UK list price of £550,000 positions the Richard Mille RM 27-02 among the most expensive production wristwatches ever offered. On the secondary market, the combination of a 50-piece run and sustained collector demand means grey-market values have historically exceeded that figure, with auction hammer prices in some cases approaching twice retail. Availability is effectively theoretical.