In solid gold this model offers two rims and nothing between them. The 31mm Datejust is built with four bezels: domed, fluted, a domed rim set with diamonds, and a fully set one. The steel reference gets the domed rim alone and the two-metal cases get three or four of them, but the five gold references take either flutes or a full setting, with neither of the middle options built in solid metal. Reference 278288RBR is the 31mm Datejust in yellow gold, carrying a bezel set with diamonds, and this configuration pairs a plain champagne dial with applied gold markers, fitted to a President bracelet. It is the fully set rim over the plainest warm dial the reference builds.
The case is solid yellow gold at thirty-one millimeters and the bezel is set with diamonds all the way round, replacing the flutes rather than sitting beside them. The dial is champagne, a warm pale gold tone close enough to the case that the two do not separate sharply, with applied gold markers raised at the hours and nothing else on the face beyond the date window and the minute track. The relationship between the two is unusual for this reference. On every set dial here the stones inside the crystal answer the stones on the rim; on this one they have nothing to answer, so the bezel is left as the only element on the watch returning hard light. Everything else is soft: a matte warm ground, faceted markers reading by shadow rather than by brightness, and a bracelet that carries light in long unbroken runs. The President is semi-circular three-piece links in the same gold, rounded across their width, and it is the only bracelet this reference offers. The effect is a watch with a bright edge and a quiet middle, which is the reverse of how most gem-set dials on this model are composed, and it is why this configuration reads as a dress watch rather than as a jewelry one despite being fully set at the rim.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight rather than easing over into the day that follows. 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. Nothing further has been added. The applied markers change how the watch is read compared with the numeral dials the reference also builds: a Roman numeral identifies its own position and can be read in isolation, while an applied baton has to be located relative to the others, so the dial is taken in as a whole. On a ground sharing a tone with its markers that difference is real, because the eye has no contrast to work from and is relying on raised edges catching light. The bezel makes this slightly harder rather than easier. A ring of stones immediately outside the dial is brighter than anything on it, and bright surroundings raise the threshold at which a low-contrast marker registers, so the watch reads more slowly in mixed light than the same dial does under flutes. That is a genuine trade rather than a detail, and it is the argument for taking the white dial on this reference if legibility matters more than tone. In direct light none of this applies and the markers read instantly, which is the condition most of these watches are photographed in and one of the reasons the difference surprises people.
Champagne at 31mm exists on six references, all of them yellow, and only three of those carry a set rim: this one and the two two-metal references, one with the domed set bezel and one with the full setting. This is the only one of the three built in solid gold. Across the range the ground reaches from 28mm to 42mm, and the marker treatment narrows as it goes: at 28mm and 40mm it is offered with applied markers or Roman numerals, and at every size in between with applied markers only. Within this reference champagne is one of two unset dials, the other being white with Roman numerals, and the remaining ten configurations carry stones on the face. Those twelve configurations are identical to the twelve built on 278278, which is this watch with a fluted rim, so the two references differ in exactly one component and agree on everything else. On this ground that single difference does more than it does anywhere else on the pair, because a plain champagne dial under flutes is a watch with no stones on it at all, and the same dial under a set bezel is a watch whose entire setting sits in one ring. No other pair of dials on the two references produces that clean a split.
This suits a buyer who wants a decorated watch that stays warm and quiet under the glass. The stones are on the outside, the dial gives nothing away, and at any distance the whole object resolves into gold with a bright edge. That is a specific proposition and a narrower one than either alternative beside it on the reference: the plain white dial under the same bezel is colder and more legible, and the set champagne dial is the same tone with the stones brought inside. Anyone who wants the watch without stones anywhere should take 278278, which builds this identical dial under flutes. Anyone who wants the dial to answer the bezel should take one of the ten set grounds here. This configuration sits deliberately between them, and it is the version chosen by people who like the look of a set rim and do not want a diamond dial, which at this size and in this metal is a common enough position that the catalogue builds two dials for it.
