Aubergine is a cool color and Everose is a warm metal, and this is the only configuration on the reference where the two are asked to occupy the same watch. Reference 278285RBR is the 31mm Datejust in solid Everose gold with a bezel set with diamonds, and this version carries an aubergine dial set with diamonds and applied Roman numerals, on the President bracelet. On paper the pairing should not work, since a cool purple inside warm gold is the combination most of the industry avoids, and it holds together because the aubergine is dark enough to read as a near-neutral until it is looked at directly.
That delay is what makes the dial usable. At a glance the ground registers as a very deep brown or a black with something in it, which sits comfortably inside a warm case, and only in direct light or against something white does the purple declare itself and the temperature conflict become visible. The lacquer is applied in several thin coats to keep the tone even across a curved surface, opaque and holding one value regardless of angle. Against that darkness the diamonds carry maximum contrast, and the Roman numerals are applied Everose and faceted, reading as warm shapes against a cool ground, which means the marker set is on the side of the case rather than the dial. Rolex draws the numerals for each case size rather than scaling a single set across the range, so those fitted here are sized for a 31mm dial. The case is solid Everose rather than a two-metal combination, uniform from the lugs through the bracelet and considerably denser than steel, so the watch carries noticeably more mass than its size suggests. Everose is Rolex's own rose gold, cast in the brand's foundry and introduced in 2005, with a small proportion of platinum that stops the color drifting toward yellow across decades, which matters here because the gold is the only warm element and any shift in it would alter the whole balance. The bezel stones are seated individually into recesses cut in the gold. The bracelet is the President, semi-circular three-piece links with a concealed clasp, tapering from the lugs toward the clasp so the mass sits forward on the wrist. The date at three displaces the numeral that would otherwise sit there, on a matched disc. The hands are polished Everose and drawn short of the numerals so they cross without appearing to touch them, and against a dark ground they read as warm lines rather than as shapes crossing it.
Rolex matches the date disc to the dial rather than cutting a paler window into a dark surface, which on a configuration this dark decides whether the aperture belongs to the watch or interrupts it, and a single aperture is what allows a full Roman sequence to fit at all. The Cyclops lens above it has been part of the model since 1953 and magnifies the date roughly two and a half times. The date changes instantaneously at midnight rather than creeping through the surrounding hour, the feature the Datejust introduced in 1945 and the one it takes its name from. Correction runs through the winding crown without moving the hands, and nothing the watch asks for requires a tool. The movement is self-winding with a power reserve of approximately 55 hours, an engineering result on a movement built to fit a 31mm case rather than a figure carried down the range, since a smaller barrel has less room to store energy and a proportionally smaller rotor gathers less of it. The rotor winds in both directions rather than only one, which lets a movement this size keep itself running on the wrist movement of an ordinary day. The crown screws down against the case. Correction takes seconds and requires no tool.
The Datejust arrived in 1945 as the first self-winding wristwatch to show the date in a window, and the 31mm case sits between the 28mm Lady-Datejust and the 36mm original. The 278000 generation replaced the 178000 series in 2018 with a revised case and bracelet. For most of the model's history the dial range ran to lighter colors, and the dark options are a recent and deliberate departure with aubergine among the newest of them. Rolex has also been more willing to set cool colors into warm metal over the past decade than at any earlier point. Solid gold references are built in far smaller numbers than the steel and two-metal ones. The President bracelet was designed in 1956 for the Day-Date and appears here as a borrowing. Within the generation, 278285RBR is the solid Everose reference with a diamond-set bezel. Dark dials also reached the solid gold references later than the steel ones, which is part of why aubergine on Everose is scarcer than its presence in the catalogue would suggest. Seven grounds are built at this reference and aubergine is one of four that exist only in set form, with chocolate, silver and mother-of-pearl. Rose and slate are listed both plain and set, white is never set, and aubergine takes the large Roman six that chocolate and slate also carry.
The collector this suits wants a warm watch that does not behave like one. Everose with a chocolate or rose-colored dial produces something entirely coherent and slightly inevitable, and aubergine breaks that without introducing a color that announces itself, since the watch reads as dark rather than as purple to almost everyone who sees it. That concealment is the appeal, and buyers who choose it almost always describe it in those terms rather than as a preference for the color itself. It is also among the least common configurations here, since aubergine arrived recently and solid gold references are built in small numbers to begin with. Anyone considering it should see it in daylight and again under a lamp before deciding, since the purple declares itself in one and disappears in the other. Only the President bracelet is offered at this reference, so the ground and the marker arrangement are the whole of the decision, and three of the seven grounds take the same Roman six this one does.
