Richard Mille Partner Ester Ledecká, Olympian Skiier and Snowboarder wears the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport, the first ladies sports watch from Richard Mille

A sporty new watch is getting into the game of seduction.

Richard Mille doesn’t sit on the sidelines. Athletes have worn its watches during French Open wins, track and field world championships, and a victorious Masters outing at the Augusta National Golf Course. A haute horlogerie manufacture with limited production—about 5,000 pieces annually and prices that can exceed $1 million—it keeps elite company on all counts. And now, it will extend its efforts to win over a (slightly) wider audience by introducing the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport, its first-ever sports watch for women.

Richard Mille Partner Margot Laffite, Racing Driver

Richard Mille Partner Aurora Straus, Racing Driver

It’s not as though Richard Mille is short on female fans or shortsighted about the number of women intrigued by its world of exclusive watches. Some might argue it has been ahead of the current conversation about genderless watches and high-complication offerings for women, with earlier ladies’ models that include a flying tourbillon. Nearly a decade ago, Richard Mille heralded 2014 as its “Year of the Woman,” releasing a series of sophisticated, high-design, female-centric pieces, including the RM 51-01 Tourbillon Michelle Yeoh, a collaboration with the actress that featured a tiger and dragon in red gold, referencing one of her most famous films. She remains a steadfast ally of the brand, wearing a custom RM 07-02 with a sapphire case on her recent best actress Oscar night win for Everything Everywhere All At Once (and virtually everywhere else, for that matter). And since 2015, the brand has sponsored the Rallye des Princesses Richard Mille, a 100-percent female vintage car rally, (I would consider ending the sentence after “rally.” Seems a real stretch after that - clunky and forced) courting women inclined toward the crossroads of sophisticated mechanics and precise timing.

Now the brand has upped the ante on its women’s watch assortment with the launch of the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport. Richard Mille enlisted six elite athletes as partners for the project. Hailing from diverse disciplines and countries, they were essential to the development of the watch, presenting various technical demands—resistance to heat, cold and shocks, for starters. The full line-up was composed of motorsports stars Aurora Straus and Margot Laffite, golfer Nelly Korda, track and field champions Nafi Thiam and Yuliya Levchenko, and Olympic gold medalist snowboarder and skier Ester Ledecká; each contributed to the design process led by Director of Creation and Development Cécile Guenat.

Richard Mille Partner Nafi Thiam, Olympic Heptathalete

While the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport is among the smallest watches in the RM portfolio (30.50mm wide x 44.95mm long x 10.35 mm thick in the signature tonneau shape), the size bears an inverse relationship to the time spent on R&D. All told, it took three years to meet the challenge of creating a compact, skeletonized in-house movement in an ergonomically correct package. The need for near weightlessness and the ability to deliver 5,000G of shock resistance compounded that difficulty.

At 36 grams (including the strap with Velcro-style closure), the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport achieved hard-to-believe lightness with new skeletonized in-house caliber CRMA8, the smallest automatic movement from the brand, featuring hours, minutes, a 50-hour power reserve, and the signature RM function selector pusher at 4 o’clock, which allows the wearer to choose between winding, neutral, and hand-setting positions. The plate and bridges are built from titanium coated with a black PVD treatment to achieve lightweight and stability. Cases in Quartz TPT (the five colorful variations), a composite material exclusive to Richard Mille, or Carbon TPT (the sole black reference) further reduce the weight of the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport.

Richard Mille Partner Nelly Korda, Professional Golfer

Richard Mille Partner Ester Ledecká wears the RM 07-04 Automatic Sport

And there’s no ignoring the uncomplicated joy of contemplating the candy store color pairings that the collaboration produced. Each has a distinct sensibility and saturated palette that looks like the product of a specific point of view rather than focus-grouped popularity.

Without a doubt, women won’t be the only takers for these timepieces. Anyone with a smaller wrist or an affinity for cleverly compact design will see it as a formidable contender.