Of the three white gold references at this size, only this one has an unset bezel. 128349RBR and 128399TBR both carry stones around the case, and 128239 is fluted, which means every set dial on the white gold roster exists in exactly one configuration where nothing outside the dial is set. Bright blue with baguette-cut markers is one of them. On the other two references the stones on the dial join a continuous treatment running around the bezel and, on one of them, down the bracelet as well; here they stop at the edge of the dial and the case answers with texture instead of light.
Bright blue is the flattest ground on the roster, a deep saturated color applied opaque with no gradient, no metallic component and no figure in the material. It holds one reading in every light and simply becomes darker or brighter with the amount reaching it. That flatness is what makes the stones work as hard as they do. Baguette-cut markers are laid flat against the surface as long stepped rectangles, and against a ground that gives back almost nothing they read at the sharpest separation the model produces, far more so than on mother-of-pearl where the two surfaces compete at similar values. The fluted bezel then does something a set one cannot: it throws light in narrow vertical lines that change as the wrist turns, so the frame around the dial is animated while the dial itself is completely static. The case is 36mm in white gold with the wide flat lugs and low band standard to the model, and the President bracelet closes it in polished semi-circular links with a concealed clasp. The bezel is also what places the watch. Fluting is the treatment this model has carried throughout its life, so a fluted white gold Day-Date reads as continuous with everything the reference has been, while a set bezel reads as a departure from it. Putting a set dial inside a fluted ring produces a watch whose two halves sit in different registers of the same model, and the result is more interesting than either extreme on its own. The blue is deep enough to hold that arrangement together. A paler ground under fluting would look like a compromise between the two references that carry stones around the case; this one looks like a decision.
A saturated flat ground makes one demand the graded and metallic dials do not, and it falls on the printed discs. The day and date backgrounds have to match a color the dial carries uniformly across its whole surface, and because the ground gives the eye a fixed reference, any discrepancy in an aperture is visible immediately rather than being absorbed by variation in the surrounding field. The day is written out in full at twelve in words rather than shortened to three letters, so the surface to be matched is wide, which makes the upper opening the harder of the two. Both discs advance instantaneously at midnight rather than creeping through the hour before it. The movement runs about seventy hours off a full wind, enough to cover a weekend off the wrist, and everything is set through the crown, with no correctors cut into the case band. What the model does not do is worth stating alongside what it does. There is no second time zone, no chronograph and no additional indication of any kind on any Day-Date ever built, so the calendar is the entire function set and a flat saturated dial is the surface that presents it most directly.
Nine grounds are offered on white gold at 36mm, and the roster is the platinum one with ice blue and its set version removed and nothing else changed. Bright blue is among the shared grounds, and its behavior across the two sizes is unusual: set with stones it exists at 36mm only, and left plain it exists at 40mm only, so the two versions never share a case. Slate is the only other ground in the range that behaves that way, and it changes metal family as well. Three references carry the white gold roster, this one with a fluted bezel, 128349RBR with a set bezel and a choice of bracelet, and 128399TBR with a set bezel and the standard President, all with identical dials. Six of the nine grounds on this roster are set dials, and four of those have no plain version at this size: bright blue, pink opal, pink and mother-of-pearl. That is a high proportion for a metal whose reputation rests on restraint, and it explains why the fluted reference matters more here than the equivalent does on yellow gold. Without it, most of what white gold offers at 36mm could only be had on a watch with stones around the case, and a buyer who wants setting on the dial and nowhere else would have nothing to buy. 128239 is the only place that combination exists in this metal, and it exists there across all six of the set grounds.
A set dial under a fluted bezel is the configuration collectors reach for when they want the stones on the dial to be the only stones on the watch, and bright blue is the ground that rewards it most. The color is strong enough to carry a watch on its own, so it does not need a set bezel to give the piece a focal point, and the fluting keeps the case in the register it has occupied on this model for decades. The result reads as a traditional Day-Date with an unusual dial rather than as a decorated watch, which is a different proposition from either of the other two white gold references and the reason this one keeps its place in the range. For a buyer who wants a set dial without the watch announcing itself from across a room, the fluted reference is the only one that offers it.
