Two grounds at this size belong to the Everose references alone. Chocolate and rose are built on the three steel and Everose cases and on none of the other six, which take champagne and olive on the yellow ones and the cooler colors on the steel and white gold ones. Every reference at 36mm carries a color the others do not, and for this alloy those two are it. Both were developed alongside Everose rather than borrowed from the wider range, which is why they sit with the metal instead of against it. Reference 126231 is the 36mm Datejust in a combination of stainless steel and Everose gold, carrying a fluted bezel, and this configuration pairs a chocolate dial set with twelve diamonds in gold settings, with no numerals on it, and an Oyster bracelet.
The Oyster is built from three-piece links with the gold running as one continuous center line down the wrist between broad flat sections of brushed steel, and it is stiffer across its width than a five-piece link, so the bracelet holds a fixed curve and the watch sits squarer on the arm than the Jubilee version does. Those brushed sections are the only matte surface on the entire piece, and on this configuration that matters: the rim is cut gold, the dial is set with twelve stones and the center links are polished, so without the broad flat steel the watch would have nowhere for the eye to rest. The case is thirty-six millimeters with the Everose bezel fluted rather than smooth, which is one of three rims this alloy is built with at the size, the others being the domed one and a bezel set with diamonds. The dial is chocolate, a deep warm brown developed alongside the alloy, and the twelve diamonds sit at the hours in gold mounts matched to the case, each one framed in warm metal against a dark ground rather than blending into it as the same setting does on a pale dial. That is the whole difference between a set chocolate dial and a set champagne one, and it is why the same twelve stones look like jewelry on the first and like markers on the second.
Hours, minutes, running seconds and a date advancing in a single step at midnight. The self-winding movement in the 36mm case holds roughly seventy hours of running time, the same reserve the 41mm cases carry and considerably more than the 31mm and 28mm ones, which run a smaller movement of their own. The dial is read by position alone, since a diamond in a gold mount says nothing about the hour it marks, and the ring functions only while it stays even, so the twelve settings are as much structure as decoration. Take them away and the dial would have nothing on it at all, which is the case the reference makes for the plain chocolate it also builds with applied markers. The date window at three is the single break in it, and against a brown ground the white disc reads as deliberate contrast rather than as an interruption, which is not true on the pale grounds this reference builds. What the setting is doing on a dark dial is different from what it does on a light one: on champagne the stones extend a bright surface, and here they are the only bright thing on the face, so the ring reads as twelve separate points rather than as a band of texture. The seventy hours the movement holds belong to the current generation of this case rather than to any dial, and they are the specification most likely to be noticed in ordinary use, since the watch survives a weekend untouched.
Chocolate at 36mm is built on three references and all three are the Everose two-metal cases, this one, the domed 126201 and the diamond-set 126281RBR. The nine references at this size divide one per metal and bezel with nothing repeated, so those three are the whole of the alloy at this diameter. They carry nine grounds each, against seven on the steel reference, ten on each yellow one and fourteen on each white gold one. Across the range the ground never appears on a cool case at any size, on twenty-three references spanning 28mm to 42mm. Within this reference it is one of nine grounds across eleven configurations, ten of the twenty-two rows carrying stones on the dial, which makes this a more heavily set reference than the steel one at the same size, where nothing at all is set. Every gem-set dial at 36mm sits on a case with gold in it, which is true at every other size the model builds as well. This reference carries ten set rows out of twenty-two, across five set grounds, and the same split runs through the domed 126201 and the fully set 126281RBR, which share its nine grounds exactly at this size.
This suits a buyer who wants a warm watch with the least possible argument in it. The dial belongs to the metal, the mounts match both, the rim is the same gold cut into facets, and the only cool elements anywhere are twelve diamonds and the steel in the bracelet. On an Oyster that steel is broad and matte, which keeps the piece from reading as a gold watch outright and gives the whole thing a working edge the Jubilee version does not have. Anyone who wants more warmth across the wrist should take the Jubilee, where the gold is split into three strips and the steel stops being the dominant surface. Anyone who wants the ground without stones should take the plain chocolate, built on this reference with applied markers. And anyone who wants stones at the rim as well should take 126281RBR, which carries this identical dial under a bezel set all the way round and turns a restrained watch into a declared one without changing anything under the crystal, which on a ground this dark is a larger change than the same swap makes on any pale dial.
