This is the only diameter where aubergine can be had on either temperature. At 28 mm the ground appears on Everose gold and on the steel and Everose construction and on nothing else; at 36 mm it survives on the steel and white gold construction alone; and here at 31 mm it is offered on both, solid Everose, solid white gold and both of the corresponding two-tone cases. A ground that begins warm and ends cool is not something the collection does elsewhere, and this size is the crossing point. This variant is the warm half of it, with an oversized VI at six set with stones, in a case of steel and Everose gold under a fluted bezel, on a Jubilee bracelet.
Which temperature a buyer takes changes the watch considerably more than the specification implies. On this Everose case the numeral, the settings and the bezel are all warm and the purple ground sits against them as the only cool element on the front of the watch, so the dial is what separates. On the white gold version the relationship inverts: the case is cool, the ground is the darkest thing on the watch, and the gold elements become the point of contrast instead. Same dial, same treatment, same size, and the eye is directed at different parts of the watch depending on which metal it arrived on. The Everose here sits in the fluted bezel alone, fluting never being cut into steel, and the rest of the exterior is steel. There is a further difference between the two temperatures that only shows over a day. On the Everose case the warm elements outnumber the cool ones on the front of the watch, so the eye adapts to warmth and the purple reads as the departure; on the white gold version the reverse holds and the same ground reads as the darkest of several cool surfaces rather than as a color at all. Buyers who have handled both usually describe them as different dials, which they are not, and the description is closer to accurate than the specification is.
The plate is worked at each hour position for the settings and at six for the numeral, anchored at a second depth, which is near the limit of what a 31 mm plate holds while remaining flat beneath the hands. It is why the 28 mm version of this ground carries a ring of settings and no numeral at all. Behind the dial the movement is built specifically to this case, self-winding, holding close to 55 hours away from the wrist where the 36 mm references reach roughly 70, the whole of the difference being barrel volume. The date sits at three beneath its magnifying lens and the crown screws home when the watch is not being set. The numeral also behaves differently on the two constructions. Gold at six against an Everose case belongs to the metal around it and reads as continuous with the watch; the same numeral on a white gold case is the only warm element on the piece and separates immediately. That is the clearest instance on this reference of a marker treatment changing meaning without changing form, and it happens at one diameter, on one ground, between two cases that are otherwise identical in every respect.
That there is no plain version of this ground at any size is the other thing to settle before choosing it. Most dials in the collection allow the surface and the setting to be decided separately, so a buyer can take a ground and then decide how far to go with it; aubergine does not, at 28 mm, at 31 or at 36. Anyone who wants the purple is accepting settings, and from this size upward a numeral as well. It is the only ground in the range that forces those choices together, and the constraint is invisible in a listing, which describes the dial as set with diamonds without indicating that no alternative exists. It is worth adding that the constraint tightens as the case grows. At 28 mm the ground carries a ring of settings and no numeral; from 31 mm the numeral is added and cannot be declined; and at 36 mm the warm cases are gone as well. Each step removes an option rather than adding one, which is the opposite of how most grounds develop across the range. Champagne front-loads its variety at the smallest case and thins upward; olive green swaps which of its two forms is available; white holds one arrangement everywhere. Aubergine narrows at every step and never widens, which is a shape no other ground on this reference has and one that a buyer moving up a size will feel directly.
The argument for this configuration is that it is the one point in the run where the ground can be taken on a warm case with the numeral treatment. Below this size the numeral is not offered and above it the warm cases are gone, so the combination exists here and nowhere else. Collectors who choose it are usually the ones who wanted purple on Everose specifically and discovered how narrow that window is. The Jubilee keeps the watch in low continuous movement beneath a dial that is doing a great deal, and among the arrangements offered here it is the most tightly bounded by the rules the collection has written for itself. A buyer who wants purple on a rose case with a numeral has one diameter available, and finding that out generally happens after the preference has already formed. It is the sort of constraint that only becomes visible once a buyer starts comparing sizes, and by then the choice has usually been made on the strength of a single watch seen in one case.
