Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Karim Haddad spotted wearing Richard Mille

Karim Haddad, the entrepreneur and luxury lifestyle figure better known to his social media following as @karim.luxury, was recently photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM 52-05 Tourbillon Pharrell Williams — a watch that commands as much attention for its artistry as for its staggering price point of $2,500,000 USD.

The RM 52-05 is a direct evolution of Richard Mille's celebrated Skull collection, first introduced with the RM 052. Where earlier skull models relied on machined metal or sapphire, the RM 52-05 Pharrell Williams edition pushes the concept into wearable fine-art territory. The case is constructed from grade 5 titanium and Carbon TPT — Richard Mille's proprietary layered carbon composite built from hundreds of parallel filaments — keeping the weight remarkably low despite the visual density of the design. The movement is the manual-winding calibre RM52-05, housing a flying tourbillon at six o'clock, a feature that eliminates the tourbillon bridge to expose the regulating organ in its entirety. Power reserve sits at approximately 70 hours.

What distinguishes this reference above all is its skull-form baseplate, hand-painted in collaboration with Pharrell Williams himself, reflecting the musician and entrepreneur's chromatic, streetwear-inflected aesthetic. Each example is individually finished, meaning no two pieces are precisely identical — a meaningful claim in a market saturated with so-called bespoke horology. The production numbers are deliberately undisclosed, though industry consensus places the edition in the very low double digits.

Karim Haddad's appearance in the RM 52-05 is consistent with the collector profile Richard Mille has cultivated since its founding in 2001: high-net-worth individuals who sit at the intersection of business, culture, and conspicuous connoisseurship. The brand has long understood that its watches function as social currency as much as timekeeping instruments, and the Pharrell Williams collaboration is among its most deliberate expressions of that philosophy.

On the secondary market, examples of the RM 52-05 Pharrell Williams rarely appear, and when they do, grey-market premiums are effectively dealer-discretionary given the near-zero supply. The $2,500,000 retail figure is not a ceiling — it is a floor. For collectors tracking Richard Mille's artist collaboration references, the RM 52-05 remains one of the most sought-after and least-available references in the entire catalogue.