Two departures on one watch, and they pull in opposite directions. Reference 278289RBR is the 31mm Datejust in solid white gold with a bezel set with diamonds, and this configuration carries an aubergine dial with Roman numerals where the six is drawn larger than the rest and set with diamonds. Aubergine is the darkest and coolest ground the reference offers, which pushes the watch toward severity, and the enlarged numeral is a piece of deliberate irregularity, which pushes it toward play. Neither wins, and the result is the most difficult dial here to summarize in a phrase. Aubergine appears at this reference only with stones on the dial, so there is no plain version of the ground to compare it against.
The lacquer is applied in several thin coats to keep the tone even across a curved surface, and it sits far enough into the dark end that it reads as a near-neutral in most light and resolves as purple only in direct light or against something white. That darkness is what gives the stones their contrast, and against it the settings holding them nearly disappear, so the enlarged six reads as light rather than as a mounted object. The remaining eleven numerals are plain applied white gold and read as restrained metal shapes, which makes the gap between one marker and every other wider here than on any other dial built on this reference. The case is solid white gold 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. The bezel is set with diamonds, its stones seated individually into recesses cut in the gold rather than dropped into a preformed channel. The bracelet is the President, semi-circular three-piece links with a concealed clasp folded away entirely inside them. The date sits at three under the Cyclops lens on a disc matched to the dial. The President carries a concealed clasp folded away so completely that the bracelet appears continuous from every angle, and Rolex draws it to taper from the lugs toward the clasp so the mass sits forward on the wrist. The semi-circular links sit closer to the skin than a flat-linked bracelet does, which on a dense metal makes a noticeable difference to how the watch settles.
Rolex matches the date disc to the dial rather than cutting a white window into a dark surface, which 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, and against a dark ground the magnified numeral carries as much contrast as a date display can be given. 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. The crown screws down against the case, and the President closes with its clasp concealed within the links. The rotor winds in both directions rather than only one, which lets a movement this size keep itself running on the modest wrist movement of an ordinary day.
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. The enlarged gem-set numeral appears on a small number of dials across the catalogue and always at six. The President bracelet was designed in 1956 for the Day-Date and appears here as a borrowing rather than an inheritance. Within the generation, 278289RBR is the solid white gold reference with a diamond-set bezel. Solid gold references are also built in far smaller numbers than the steel and two-metal ones, and the white gold versions in smaller numbers again, since most buyers reaching for solid gold want it to be identifiable as gold. Rolex has also been more willing to set cool colors into precious metal over the past decade than at any earlier point, and aubergine in a white gold case is the clearest instance of it anywhere in the catalogue.
The collector this suits is not looking for a watch that resolves. Most specifications settle into a single reading within a few seconds, and this one keeps two going, since the ground is austere and the marker layout is not, and neither element concedes to the other. That makes it the most interesting dial on the reference to keep looking at and the hardest to recommend to anyone who has not seen it. It is also among the least common configurations here, since aubergine arrived recently and the enlarged numeral dials are built in smaller numbers than the standard Roman ones, so the intersection of the two is scarce even by the standards of a solid gold reference. 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. Among the three enlarged-numeral dials it is also the one that reaches the open market least often, and the one most likely to be bought by someone who came looking for something else entirely.
