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Entrepreneur Steven Zhang spotted wearing Richard Mille

Steven Zhang was pitchside at the San Siro during Romelu Lukaku's much-anticipated return to FC Internazionale Milano when photographers caught a glimpse of something notable on his wrist: a Richard Mille RM 17-01 Manual Winding Tourbillon in ceramic and rose gold. The setting — one of Italian football's most media-saturated moments of the season — gave collectors and enthusiasts a rare close look at one of Richard Mille's quieter launches.

The RM 17-01 draws its technical DNA directly from the RM 017, an ultra-thin skeletonized tourbillon built around a tonneau-adjacent rectangular case. For the 17-01, Richard Mille transplanted that same manually wound tourbillon movement into a more conventional tonneau-shaped case — a subtle but meaningful shift that broadens wearability without compromising the caliber's architecture. The movement features a variable-geometry rotor, a free-sprung balance with variable inertia, and the characteristic PTFE-coated bridges that have become a Richard Mille engineering signature. Case construction combines technical ceramic — known for its scratch resistance and lightness — with rose gold, a pairing that balances industrial austerity with warmth.

From a collector standpoint, the RM 17-01 occupies an interesting position in the Richard Mille catalog. It arrived without a press release, without a baselworld or SIHH platform, and without a celebrity ambassador push — unusual for a brand that has mastered the art of high-profile placement. That low-key entry has, paradoxically, given it a degree of credibility among serious collectors who view spectacle-free launches as a signal of confidence in the object itself. Production is extremely limited, and public sightings remain rare.

Steven Zhang, born in 1991 and the son of Suning Group chairman Zhang Jindong, took over as Inter president in 2018 and has consistently demonstrated an appetite for serious horology on his wrist. His choice of the RM 17-01 — rather than one of the brand's more aggressively marketed sport references — reads as a considered one, consistent with a collector who favors technical substance over logo recognition.

On the secondary market, the RM 17-01 in ceramic and rose gold commands a significant premium over any theoretical retail figure, reflecting both the tourbillon complication and the reference's scarcity. Buyers looking to acquire one should expect grey-market prices well into six figures, with availability limited to a handful of specialist dealers globally.