Footballer Didier Drogba spotted wearing a Richard Mille

Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast and Chelsea FC striker widely regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of the Premier League era, was recently photographed wearing a Richard Mille RM 10 fitted with a diamond-set bezel — a configuration that places this early RM reference firmly at the intersection of high horology and high jewellery.

The Richard Mille RM 10 is a historically significant piece within the brand's catalog. Launched in the mid-2000s, the RM 10 was among Richard Mille's first references to house a skeletonized automatic movement — the Calibre RMAC1, a heavily modified base movement with a variable geometry rotor and a free-sprung balance. The case, machined from grade-5 titanium, follows the brand's established tonneau architecture and measures approximately 45.65 mm × 38.45 mm, with a sapphire crystal display back exposing the movement architecture. The crown and pushers are positioned at 9 o'clock in the characteristic RM fashion. At the time of its release, the RM 10 represented Richard Mille's attempt to democratize — relatively speaking — access to the brand's engineering philosophy through an automatic winding complication rather than a tourbillon.

From a collector's standpoint, early RM references such as the RM 10 carry genuine historical weight. They predate the brand's global celebrity endorsement era and represent a period when Richard Mille was still establishing its technical credibility with serious watch collectors rather than the broader luxury consumer market. The diamond-bezel variant, reserved for a small production run, adds a layer of scarcity that makes it particularly sought after on the secondary market.

Drogba's relationship with luxury timepieces is well documented. The footballer has consistently appeared in high-profile contexts wearing watches from the upper tier of the market, and his choice of an early, technically substantive RM reference rather than a later celebrity-edition piece speaks to a degree of genuine collector awareness.

On the market, the Richard Mille RM 10 in standard titanium trades on the grey market in a wide range depending on dial configuration and condition. The diamond-bezel version commands a meaningful premium. The UK list price of £140,000 places the retail value in the $175,000–$180,000 USD range at current exchange rates, with grey-market transactions for this specific configuration trending close to or above retail given limited availability.