This reference is one of three in the model where the bracelet is a variable at all, and this configuration declines it. Every one of the thirteen dial arrangements 128348RBR offers is available on both the standard President and a diamond-set version of it, without a single ground withheld from either, which makes the bracelet the one axis here that never interacts with what sits on the dial. A buyer settles the ground, then the markers where the ground permits a choice, then the bracelet, and none of those decisions constrains the next. Taking the plain bracelet under a set bezel and a set champagne dial draws the line at the case, and where that line falls is the whole character of the watch.
Champagne is a warm metallic surface rather than a flat color, shifting from pale gold to deep cream as the light moves across it, and this version sets baguette-cut stones directly into it with nothing framing them. No gold surrounds, no accents at six and nine, just a ring of identical long stepped rectangles laid flat against a reflective ground. On a metallic dial that arrangement works by the character of the light rather than its quantity: the stones return it in broad flat sheets from one plane while the dial scatters it diffusely across a curve, so the ring separates cleanly even when the two surfaces are equally bright. The bezel is set around its full circumference, and the President bracelet below it is not, which puts a hard stop at the lugs. The case is 36mm in yellow gold with the low band and wide flat lugs the model uses throughout, and the bracelet runs in polished semi-circular three-piece links, tapering into a concealed clasp that leaves the profile unbroken from case to buckle. An unset President is finished to be read as a shape rather than as a surface. The center link is polished to the same brightness as the outer two, so the three sections resolve into one continuous semi-circular profile instead of three parallel bands, and the joints are tight enough that the bracelet looks solid until it moves. Weight in yellow gold at this length is substantial and it sits low, which is what gives a Day-Date its particular way of settling onto a wrist rather than riding on top of one.
Everything the watch does mechanically happens through two openings and a crown. The day is written out in full at twelve rather than abbreviated to three letters, which demands a wide aperture high on the dial and a disc large enough to carry every day without cramping the letters. The date sits at three beneath a lens set into the crystal. Both are printed on flat discs whose background has to sit convincingly inside a reflective ground, which no printed surface can match through its full range, so the frames are doing more work here than they would on a plain dial. Both indications change instantaneously at midnight rather than creeping through the preceding hour. The movement carries roughly seventy hours off a full wind, enough that the watch survives a weekend off the wrist. Setting runs through the crown alone, with the calendar advanced by the hands rather than through correctors in the case band, which is what allows the flank to stay smooth into the bracelet. The day is spelled in full at twelve and the date sits at three across all eight grounds this reference builds, so champagne is separated from the rest by its ground and its markers alone. It is one of two grounds here offered in two marker arrangements.
Ten grounds are offered on yellow gold at 36mm and seven of them exist on this metal and nowhere else, champagne among them in both its plain and its set form. Three references carry the roster in full: 128238 with a fluted bezel, 128398TBR, and this one. Only this one doubles, because only this one offers the bracelet as a choice, and the same is true across the model as a whole. The diamond-set President appears on three references in total, all at 36mm, in Everose, yellow and white gold. Platinum never takes it and the 40mm case never takes it. So a buyer looking at a set bracelet has three watches in the entire range to consider, and a buyer who wants a set bezel on yellow gold without one has this configuration and the equivalent on 128398TBR. Comparing the three yellow gold references at this size is unusually simple, because the dials do not vary between them at all. 128238 carries the roster with a fluted bezel, 128398TBR with a set bezel of its own, and this one with a set bezel and an optional set bracelet. Same ten grounds, same marker arrangements, same case and same movement across all three. What that produces is a single continuous scale running from the least decorated version of this watch to the most, with the dial held constant along its entire length, so a buyer can decide how far along to sit without any of it affecting the choices made at the dial. Very little else in the range is laid out that cleanly.
Choosing the plain bracelet on a reference built to carry a set one is a deliberate act rather than a default, and it produces the better-balanced watch of the two. The dial and the bezel are both set; the bracelet is not; so the decoration is contained within the diameter of the case and the wrist below it stays quiet. That containment is what most collectors are looking for when they buy a set-bezel Day-Date, and it explains why the standard bracelet remains the more common choice on all three of the references that offer an alternative. The champagne ground reinforces it. Because the dial is the same temperature as the case and the bracelet, the watch reads as one warm object with a band of light around its face rather than as a piece of jewelry with a movement inside. For a buyer who wants the set bezel to be the statement and nothing beyond it to compete, this is where the line belongs.
