Everything about a Datejust is rotationally regular except this. The case is round, the bezel is a ring, the markers repeat at equal intervals and the bracelet is symmetrical about its own axis, so a watch of this design has no orientation beyond up. Reference 278289RBR is the 31mm Datejust in solid white gold with a bezel set with diamonds, and this configuration carries a pink dial with Roman numerals where the six is drawn considerably larger than the rest and set with diamonds. That single enlargement is the only asymmetry anywhere on the object, and it gives the watch a bottom in a way nothing else in the reference does.
The oversized numeral is a compositional device rather than a decorative one. A Roman VI is already the widest character in the sequence, and enlarging it further makes it the anchor of the layout, which is why Rolex sets that one and leaves the other eleven plain. The stones are set into the numeral itself rather than around it, following the shape of the letterform so it stays readable as a numeral, and at 31mm there is just enough dial for that to work without crowding the neighbors on either side. The pink lacquer is applied in several thin coats to keep the tone even across a curved surface, opaque and holding one value regardless of angle, and against a pale ground the diamonds depend on their mounting rather than on contrast, so the setting has to be precise and Rolex keeps it low and tight. 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. The bracelet is the President, semi-circular three-piece links with a concealed clasp. The date sits at three under the Cyclops lens on a matched disc. 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 rather than being distributed evenly around it. The semi-circular links also 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.
The Datejust shows the date and nothing else, and a single aperture is what allows a full Roman sequence to fit at all, since a second window would leave no room for twelve numerals on a dial this size. The date at three displaces the numeral that would otherwise sit there, which means the dial carries two interruptions in its sequence rather than one. 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. 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 is what allows a movement this size to 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. The enlarged gem-set numeral appears on a small number of dials across the catalogue and always at six rather than at any other position, which is itself worth noticing, since the layout would work at nine or twelve and Rolex has never built it there. The President bracelet was designed in 1956 for the Day-Date and appears on the precious metal Datejust references as a borrowing. 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. Pink reached the solid gold references at the same time as the steel ones rather than later, which is unusual for a color of this kind and suggests Rolex intended it across the range from the outset.
The buyer for this wants one thing on the watch to be memorable and does not want it to be the color. Pink on a solid gold watch is easily read as the whole idea, and the enlarged numeral takes that role instead, which leaves the color doing supporting work rather than carrying the object. It also means the watch can be described in a sentence by someone who saw it once, which is not true of most configurations here. Buyers who compare it to the plain Roman version of the same color usually find the difference larger than a single marker change should produce, and that is precisely because the change is to the dial's symmetry rather than to its decoration. It is the version to own if the watch should be remembered for its layout rather than its color. Only three grounds at this reference take the large Roman six, pink among them with aubergine and dark grey, so the arrangement is narrower than the diamond hour markers that five grounds carry.
