Watch Paparazzi

Footballer Dani Alves spotted wearing Richard Mille

Dani Alves, then defending in the colors of FC Barcelona, was photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM35-01 — a watch that carries serious technical and cultural weight well beyond its headline price tag. The sighting came as no surprise to anyone who follows the Brazilian right-back's well-documented enthusiasm for high-end timepieces, but it offered a clean look at one of Richard Mille's most accomplished sport-oriented references.

The Richard Mille RM35-01 was conceived alongside Rafael Nadal as part of an ongoing collaborative engineering brief: produce a wristwatch capable of surviving the most physically demanding conditions in professional sport. The case is constructed from NTPT carbon — a layered filament composite originally developed for America's Cup yacht racing — which produces the brand's characteristic dark, wood-grain-like surface texture while delivering exceptional torsional rigidity at minimal mass. Total case weight comes in under 33 grams. The movement is the in-house RMAL1 automatic caliber, featuring a variable-geometry rotor, a free-sprung balance with variable inertia, and a baseplate machined from grade-5 titanium. Power reserve sits at approximately 55 hours, and the skeletonized dial exposes the architecture fully.

Among collectors, the RM35-01 occupies a specific and respected niche. It is not a tourbillon — the RM35-02 carries that complication — but its manufacture caliber, materials specification, and production volume place it firmly in serious collector conversation. The Nadal association gives it a cultural anchor that many Richard Mille references lack, and NTPT carbon examples in clean condition hold value stubbornly on the secondary market.

Alves has long been one of football's most visible watch enthusiasts, photographed across multiple Richard Mille references over the years. The RM35-01 on his wrist fits a pattern: technically serious, visually arresting, and unmistakably aligned with the brand's athlete-partnership narrative.

At UK retail the RM35-01 carried an RRP of approximately £85,000. On the grey market, demand from both sport and entertainment figures has kept values elevated, with clean examples regularly trading above list — a reliable pattern for sought-after Richard Mille sport references regardless of broader market fluctuations.