Nothing in the range puts a greater distance between the dial and everything around it. White with applied markers is the plainest configuration this reference offers, carrying no color, no gradient, no figure and no stones, and it is fitted here to a case with a set bezel and a bracelet set through its center links. The decoration surrounds the dial completely and stops at its edge. On most watches built this way the dial joins in; a paved or a stone ground would carry the setting inward and the piece would read as a single decorative object. This one refuses at the boundary, and the refusal is what the configuration is for.
The ground is flat, opaque and constant, holding the same value in a dark room and a bright one, which is what separates it from champagne and from every metallic finish in the roster. Applied markers in gold stand proud of the surface with polished faces, and against white they sit at close to the highest contrast the model achieves without stones. The day aperture at twelve and the date window at three are framed in gold on a surface the printed discs behind them can match exactly, which is possible on flat white and on almost nothing else here. Around that quiet field the bezel is set with diamonds through its full circumference, and the President bracelet carries stones down the center links so the light continues past the lugs and along the wrist. The case is 36mm in yellow gold, with the wide flat lugs and low band standard to the model, and the whole assembly reads as a bright frame built around a deliberately empty middle. The proportions are what keep that arrangement from looking accidental. The set bezel occupies a narrow band at the outer edge of the case, the bracelet setting runs down the center links alone, and between them the dial holds an uninterrupted field wider than either. If the bezel were broader or the dial smaller the empty middle would read as a gap; at this diameter it reads as the subject. The gold markers are the only things standing on that field, spaced evenly around it, and the two calendar openings are the only other interruptions in it.
The Day-Date fixes its layout before the dial is chosen, and on a plain ground that ordering is visible in a way it is not elsewhere. The day is spelled out in full at twelve in words rather than three-letter abbreviations, which is the model reason for existing and what dictates the width of the upper opening across every reference in the range. The arc has to be wide enough for the longest day of the week without crowding at its ends, and the disc behind it large enough to carry every day at the same size. That requirement gives up the upper third of the dial permanently, on this dial as on the paved ones, and the difference is that here the surrendered area is visible as empty rather than filled. The date sits at three under a lens. Both discs jump instantaneously at midnight rather than drifting through the hour before it. The movement runs roughly seventy hours off a full wind, and setting happens entirely through the crown, with no correctors interrupting the case band. Eight grounds are built at this reference, and white is the only one that is never offered with stones on the dial, while champagne and green ombre appear both plain and set and the remaining five exist in set form alone.
White is one of only three grounds offered on this case that exist outside yellow gold, alongside mother-of-pearl set with diamonds and the paved dial; the other seven belong to this metal alone. It is also the only plain ground on the reference available in two marker treatments, applied here and Roman as a separate configuration, so it carries a decision that the colored and graded grounds have made for them. Thirteen dial arrangements are offered on 128348RBR and every one is available on both bracelets, which makes this the largest configuration set in the model at 36mm. The diamond-set President itself is confined to three references in the whole range, this one, 128345RBR in Everose and 128349RBR in white gold, all at the smaller size. Platinum is never offered with it and neither is the 40mm case. White is also the ground that makes those three references comparable to one another. Because it appears on all of them and looks the same regardless of the metal it is fitted to, a white dial isolates the case and the bracelet completely, so the Everose, yellow and white gold versions of a fully set Day-Date differ in nothing but the color of the metal. The colored grounds cannot do this, since each is locked to its own metal and will not appear on more than one of the three. Mother-of-pearl cannot either, because the shell takes on the tone of whatever surrounds it. Only the paved dial offers the same neutrality, and it does so by removing the dial from the comparison rather than by holding it steady.
A plain white dial inside a fully set case is a watch that argues with itself, and collectors respond to it in one of two ways with very little middle ground. Read one way it is unresolved, a decorated watch whose dial did not get the message. Read the other way it is the only configuration on the reference that stays legible and wearable while carrying a set bracelet, because the dial gives the eye somewhere to land and the time can be read at a glance from any angle in any light. The second reading is the one that holds up over time. Set dials are difficult to read quickly and stone dials depend on the light; white with gold markers does neither, so this is the version of a fully set Day-Date that can be worn daily rather than selected for an occasion. For a buyer who wants the bracelet and does not want the watch to become an ornament, the dial is where that gets decided, and this is the decision.
