One color on this reference is cool and the rest belong to the alloy. Rose and chocolate were both developed alongside Everose and sit with it; slate and white are neutrals; silver is a metal tone; the shell takes its color from whatever surrounds it. Aubergine is the exception, a cool purple ground in a warm gold case, and it is the only element on the watch working against the metal rather than with it. Reference 278275 is the 31mm Datejust in Everose gold, carrying a fluted bezel, and this configuration pairs an aubergine dial with Roman numerals and an oversized six set with eleven diamonds, fitted to a President bracelet.
The case is solid Everose gold at thirty-one millimeters, with the fluted bezel cut into the metal rather than fitted as a separate ring. The dial is aubergine, a deep purple that reads as near-black in most light and only resolves as a color when the light is direct, which is the quality distinguishing it from the bright blues and greens the range builds on cooler cases, which is the quality letting it sit in a warm case without the disagreement being constant. Ten Roman numerals in gold stand around it and the position at six carries a numeral enlarged well past the others and set with eleven diamonds. Against a ground this dark the gold characters separate cleanly at every angle, and the stones at six sit at the highest contrast the reference can produce inside the crystal. The President bracelet is semi-circular three-piece links in the same gold, rounded across their width, and it is the only bracelet this reference offers. Because everything except the dial is warm metal, the watch divides cleanly in two: a cool dark disc under the crystal and gold everywhere around it, with the fluted rim sitting exactly at the boundary. That division is sharper here than on any other configuration the reference builds, since the rose grounds match the case and the neutrals decline to argue with it. A purple ground is also the one dial here that changes what it is depending on the room: in a warm interior it reads brown, in daylight it reads violet, and in most other conditions it reads black.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight rather than easing into the following day. The self-winding movement in the 31mm case holds roughly fifty-five hours of running time, matching the 28mm references rather than the 36mm ones, which run a movement of their own, since the smaller cases use a different mechanism entirely rather than a scaled version of the larger one. The marker arrangement is the substantive content of the configuration. Ten numerals establish which hour each position is and the eleventh, enlarged and set, establishes where the bottom of the dial sits, so the eye finds six before anything else and reads outward from there. That ordering is worth more on a dark ground than on a pale one: on silver the stones and the surface return light at similar rates and the enlarged numeral registers first as a shape, while on aubergine the diamonds have nothing to blend into and the numeral registers as a set object immediately. The date window at three is the only other break in the sequence, and against a dark purple the white disc is brighter than the gold characters, which is the one relationship on this dial that could not be tuned. Everything else was chosen, including how far the enlarged numeral extends past the others and how many stones it holds, and the window is the single element the design had to accept as it came.
Aubergine is one of two grounds taking the oversized six across more than one metal family. Five of the seven grounds receiving that treatment are locked to a single family, chocolate and slate to Everose, silver and olive green to yellow, pink to white gold; aubergine reaches the Everose and white gold cases and dark grey reaches the yellow and white ones, and between them those two cover what the other five leave. Aubergine is never built on a yellow case at any size. Within this reference it is one of nine grounds across eleven configurations, seven of which carry stones, and one of three offered with the oversized six here, alongside chocolate and slate, which are the two grounds the alloy holds to itself. The reference is one of five solid gold Datejusts at this size, all of them President-only, and 278285RBR is the same case with a rim set with diamonds carrying an identical dial roster. The oversized six itself exists at 31mm and at no other diameter in the current range, so this configuration cannot be had larger or smaller in any metal. Seven grounds are built at this reference and aubergine is one of four that exist only with stones on the dial, taking the large Roman six with eleven of them, an arrangement chocolate and slate also use.
This suits a buyer who wants a solid gold watch with something in it that does not belong to the gold. Aubergine is the one ground here that is neither the alloy's own color nor a neutral standing aside from it, so the watch has a genuine disagreement in the middle of an otherwise unified object, and the enlarged six gives that disagreement a focal point. Anyone who wants this ground without the numeral will not find it on this reference, since aubergine comes one way here. Anyone who wants the same treatment on a ground that agrees with the case should take the chocolate or the slate, both built here with the identical arrangement and both belonging to the alloy rather than standing against it. And anyone who wants the stones outside the crystal as well should take 278285RBR, where this dial sits under a set rim and the cool ground is framed by two rings of stones rather than one enlarged character.
