On the darkest dial the reference offers, the enlarged six is the only bright thing on the watch that is not the bezel. Reference 278344RBR is the 31mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and white gold with a domed bezel set with diamonds, and this configuration carries an aubergine dial with Roman numerals where the six is drawn considerably larger than the rest and set with diamonds. The remaining eleven numerals are plain applied white gold, which against a deep cool ground read as restrained metal shapes, and the set six reads as light. That gap between one marker and every other is wider here than on any other dial built on this reference. Everything else on the dial is holding back.
Aubergine is the only cool color in the range, applied as an even lacquer in several thin coats to hold its tone 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. Rolex sets them into the numeral itself rather than around it, following the shape of the letterform so it stays readable as a numeral, and the enlargement is what makes the setting possible, since a standard VI would not carry enough stones to register. Against a dark ground the settings themselves nearly disappear, leaving the stones reading as light rather than as mounted objects. The case is a combination of stainless steel and white gold, the least visible two-metal pairing Rolex makes, since white gold sits close enough to steel in color that most people never register the watch as two-tone at all, and the bezel is white gold set with diamonds so the stones cover most of the only surface where the second metal would be identifiable. The bracelet is the Oyster, three broad flat links brushed across the top with polished flanks. The date sits at three under the Cyclops lens on a disc matched to the dial. The hands are polished white gold and drawn short of the numerals so they cross without appearing to touch them, reading as bright lines against a ground that is neither bright nor fully dark. Rolex redraws the hands and markers for each case size rather than reusing a single set across the range. The contrast between the set numeral and the plain ones is also wider here than on any other dial in the range, since a deep cool lacquer gives the stones their maximum separation while leaving the plain white gold numerals reading as restrained metal rather than as light.
Rolex matches the date disc to the dial rather than cutting a white window into a dark surface, which on a configuration this dark decides whether the aperture belongs to the watch or interrupts it. The lens above it has been part of the Datejust since 1953, and against a dark ground the magnified numeral carries as much contrast as a date display can be given. A single aperture is also what allows a full Roman sequence to fit, and the date at three displaces the numeral that would otherwise sit there. The date changes instantaneously at midnight rather than creeping through the surrounding hour, the feature the Datejust introduced in 1945. Correction runs through the winding crown without moving the hands, hand winding uses the same crown, 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 for a 31mm case. The crown screws down against the case, and the Oyster closes with a concealed clasp folded away inside the links. Winding by hand runs through the same crown with no separate position to learn, and a movement sized for this case gathers less from the same wrist movement than a larger one, so the watch does better worn daily.
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. For most of the model's history the dial range ran to light colors, and the dark options are a more recent and more deliberate departure, with aubergine among the newest of them. 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. Within the generation, 278344RBR is the steel and white gold reference with a diamond-set domed bezel. The 31mm case is also the least discussed of the three Datejust sizes and the one that has quietly absorbed most of the demand that used to go to the smaller references. Rolex has also never built the enlarged numeral on a dial darker than this one, which makes it the extreme of the three. Aubergine appears on this reference only as a set ground, with no plain version, and it is the one of the three that carries the enlarged six alone rather than in a pair of arrangements.
The buyer for this wants the watch to be dark and to have exactly one point of brightness inside it. The bezel supplies a ring of light around the outside and the six supplies a single point within, and everything between them is deep cool lacquer and plain metal. That is a more controlled arrangement than a gem-set marker ring produces, and it reads as designed rather than as decorated. It is also among the less common configurations here, since aubergine arrived recently and the enlarged numeral dials are built in smaller numbers than the standard Roman ones. Among the three grounds Rolex builds the enlarged numeral on, this is the one that reads darkest at a distance and resolves most slowly up close. Buyers who find the pink and grey versions insufficiently emphatic generally end up here and stop looking. It takes two of the reference's thirty-two rows, one on each bracelet.
