Aubergine is the only ground in the collection with no plain version. Every other dial the range offers exists somewhere without stones, whether at one size or across the whole line, and aubergine does not: it appears set with diamonds and in no other form, on any case, at any diameter. There is no unset aubergine dial to compare it against and no simpler version to step down to. A buyer who wants the ground accepts a set dial as part of the same decision. This variant is that dial at 36 mm, with gold Roman numerals at six and nine set with stones, in a case of steel and white gold, under a fluted bezel, on a Jubilee bracelet.
A deep purple ground is an unusual thing for this collection to make and the setting is what allows it. Aubergine sits between the dark grounds and the colored ones, dark enough to read as near-black at a distance and saturated enough to show its tone at close range, and that ambiguity would leave a plain dial looking indecisive. Stones resolve it. The settings at the hour positions and the gold numerals at six and nine give the eye fixed points of known brightness, and the ground is then read against them rather than on its own, which is where the purple becomes legible as purple. Around the dial the white gold of this construction sits in the fluted bezel alone, fluting never being cut into steel, and the case sides, lugs and bracelet are steel. The date sits at three under its magnifying lens. The ambiguity of the ground is worth dwelling on because it governs how the watch behaves. In shadow or at any distance aubergine reads as black and the watch presents as a dark-dialed steel piece with a set dial; turn it toward a window and the purple arrives, not gradually but as a distinct change of state. Very few dials in this collection do that. Black stays black, slate stays grey, and even the strongly colored grounds like olive and mint hold their tone across most conditions. Aubergine has two appearances and the transition between them is the reason to own it, which also makes it the hardest dial on the reference to represent in a photograph, since an image can only ever show one of the two.
The plate carries settings at every hour position and two numerals anchored separately at a different depth, which is close to the practical ceiling for a dial that must still sit flat beneath the hands. At 28 mm the same ground is given the ring of settings alone for that reason, and the numerals appear only from 31 mm upward once the plate has the reserve to take them. Behind it the movement is self-winding and runs for roughly 70 hours away from the wrist, against close to 55 in the smaller references, since a larger case takes a physically larger movement with a proportionally longer mainspring. The date advances in a single step at midnight and the crown screws home when the watch is not being set. The progression of the treatment across sizes follows the plate rather than the ground. At 28 mm the dial carries a ring of settings and no numerals, at 31 mm the numerals arrive at six and nine, and at 36 mm the same arrangement continues. Each step corresponds to a plate with more material in reserve rather than to any change in what the ground needs, and the ground itself is identical throughout. That is a useful thing to know when comparing sizes, because a buyer looking at the 28 mm version and this one is looking at the same dial with a different amount of applied metal on it rather than at two different designs.
Where the ground sits changes as the case grows, which is rarer than it sounds. At 28 mm aubergine appears on Everose gold and the steel and Everose construction and on nothing else. At 31 mm it adds solid white gold and the steel and white gold construction, so both temperatures are available. At 36 mm the warm cases drop away entirely and the ground survives on the steel and white gold construction alone. A dial that begins as a warm-metal proposition and ends as a cool one is not a pattern the collection repeats, and this reference is the endpoint of it. There is a second consequence to a ground with no plain form. Every other dial in the range gives a buyer a way to have the surface without the stones, so a preference for the ground and a preference for a set dial can be separated. Aubergine does not allow that separation at any size or in any metal. Anyone who wants the purple is accepting settings, and numerals from 31 mm upward, and there is no version of the decision in which those come apart. It is the only ground in the collection that forces the two choices together.
The argument for this configuration is that it is the least reproducible dial on the reference. Purple is not a shade this collection uses elsewhere, the ground is never offered plain, and at this size it exists on two references and no others. Collectors who choose it are generally not comparing it against anything, because there is nothing close enough to compare it to. The Jubilee keeps the watch wearable across a day and the steel case keeps a set dial from reading as jewelry. Among the arrangements this reference offers it is the one that will be recognized least often and remembered longest by anyone who does. It is also the arrangement here where the specification carries the least information, since a listing reading aubergine set with diamonds describes a dial that most people have never seen and gives no indication that it will look black for most of the day.
