Footballer Marcus Rashford spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United and England forward, was recently spotted wearing one of the most elusive pieces in the Richard Mille catalogue: the RM 35-02 Ultimate Edition produced in collaboration with French alpine ski champion Alexis Pinturault. With production capped at exactly 35 references worldwide — a number that mirrors the watch's model designation — this is not a piece that circulates freely, making any public sighting noteworthy.

The Richard Mille RM 35-02 is built around the manually wound RMAL1 calibre, a skeletonised movement featuring a barrel-integrated tourbillon, free-sprung variable inertia balance wheel, and a grade-5 titanium baseplate with five titanium bridges. Power reserve runs to approximately 55 hours. The movement architecture prioritises shock resistance and thermal stability — essential performance requirements drawn directly from Pinturault's feedback competing at the highest level of alpine racing, where equipment endures extreme vibration and temperature variance.

The case of the RM 35-02 Ultimate Edition is constructed from Carbon TPT, Richard Mille's signature multilayer carbon composite in which thin filaments of carbon are wound at alternating 45-degree angles and compressed under heat and pressure. The result is a case that weighs under 30 grams on the wrist, exhibits distinctive marbled surface patterning unique to each unit, and offers exceptional resistance to impact and torsion. Paired with an NTPT carbon bezel and matching strap hardware, the watch reads as a cohesive technical object rather than mere luxury accessory.

For collectors, the Pinturault collaboration sits in a different tier from Richard Mille's standard sport references. The 35-piece limitation, the athlete-specific provenance, and the Ultimate Edition designation combine to create a piece that rarely reaches open secondary market listings. When examples do surface, they command significant premiums, reflecting both genuine scarcity and the broader collector appetite for numbered Richard Mille athlete editions.

Rashford's watch collection is well documented among horology followers, with previous sightings spanning Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and multiple Richard Mille references. His choice to wear the RM 35-02 Pinturault publicly underlines his position as one of football's most credible watch enthusiasts — and confirms the piece's status as a genuine trophy within even serious collections. List price sits at approximately $160,000; current grey-market valuations have climbed to around $420,000.