Some people are said to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Others put all their most obscene desires on their wrist. That latter camp includes Drake: remember when the rapper wore
Richard Mille’s “Erotic” watch to an NBA Finals game in 2019? That piece, known as reference—and this is not a joke—RM 69, functions not unlike a horny Mad Libs: the pusher on the side activates the three bars on the dial to flip until it generates a random prurient phrase. And the small club of owners now includes rapper and McDonald’s collaborator Travis Scott. This morning, Scott posted a picture of himself wearing the watch, with its bleepers set to the ever-subtle “Let Me Explore Your Pussy.”
The RM 69 is not unlike a comet: appearing once or twice a lifetime in unforgettable fashion. I haven’t seen it in the wild since Drake took it for a spin, and every time I see the piece I’m slightly stunned it’s a real object and not a prop invented for 30 Rock’s Tracy Jordan.
But this watch is real and it’s spectacular. If you need a refresher, here’s how it works. The top bar displays a series of declaratives: “I want to,” “I need to,” “I long to,” “I lust to,” “I’d love to,” and “Let me.” The middle bar covers verbs, well known as the sexiest parts of speech: “explore,” “taste,” “kiss,” “arouse,” “devour” and “caress.” The bottom bar answers the question of when, where, or how: “you tonight,” “your lips,” “your body,” “your nipples,” “your pussy,” and “you madly.”
The watch was designed to nestle into a surprisingly long lineage of “erotic” watches, according to Richard Mille’s website. Watchmakers have been stowing small erotic paintings in the backcases of pocketwatches since the 17th centuty. Other recent examples are somehow cruder than Richard Mille’s take on the tradition. Pieces like the