Footballer Ferland Mendy spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Ferland Mendy, the Real Madrid and French national team full-back, was recently spotted wearing a Richard Mille RM 035 Rafael Nadal Americas limited edition — a piece so scarce that most collectors have never encountered one in person. With production capped at just 50 units and distribution tied to the Americas market, sightings of this specific reference on the wrist of a high-profile athlete carry genuine weight.

The Richard Mille RM 035 was originally developed in close collaboration with Rafael Nadal and introduced as a featherweight tourbillon built to survive the punishment of professional tennis. The Americas variant distinguishes itself immediately through its material specification: the front and rear bezels are machined from black TZP — tetragonal zirconia polycrystal — an advanced technical ceramic prized for its hardness, scratch resistance and near-zero thermal expansion. The caseband, by contrast, is constructed from NTPT carbon, Richard Mille's proprietary nano-layered composite that delivers exceptional rigidity at minimal mass. The yellow crown and applied hour markers provide the sole chromatic contrast, a deliberate visual cue referencing the warmth of Latin American identity.

The RM 035 family runs the calibre RMUL1, a manually wound tourbillon movement built on a skeletonised baseplate that exposes the full architecture of the gear train. Functions are kept purposefully lean — hours, minutes, seconds — in line with Richard Mille's philosophy that complications should serve performance rather than accumulate for prestige. Case dimensions sit at approximately 49.94 × 42.68 mm, substantial but deceptively light on the wrist thanks to the carbon construction.

Among Richard Mille collectors, regional and athlete-specific limited runs consistently outperform standard references at auction. A production run of 50 pieces tied to both the Nadal partnership and a defined geographic market creates a double-layer of scarcity that underpins the secondary premium. Grey-market values for this Americas edition have settled around the $200,000 mark, a considerable distance above even the already steep list price of the standard RM 035.

Mendy's choice is consistent with a generation of elite European footballers who treat Richard Mille not as jewellery but as technical statement — a watch built with the same obsessive material logic applied to the boots on their feet.