A set bezel changes a gradient more than it changes any other kind of dial. An ombre ground is darkest at the rim, which is exactly where a ring of stones sits, so the setting lands against the deepest part of the transition and produces the sharpest perimeter contrast the dial can offer. On a flat or a metallic ground the bezel and the outer dial are closer in value and the boundary is gentler. Here it is abrupt, and the effect is to make the gradient look steeper than it is by lifting the edge that frames it. The fluted alternative on 228236 does the opposite, dropping a soft broken brightness onto the same area, so the two references present the same dial in genuinely different terms.
The ground is a single blue laid so its density rises continuously from the middle of the dial toward the rim, with no seam anywhere along the way. Blue takes the treatment better than the other colors the model applies it to, since blue holds its identity across a wide range of values and both ends read plainly as blue, so the progression registers as one color gaining weight rather than as two meeting. At 40mm the run from center to rim is longer, which smooths the transition and pushes the endpoints further apart. The markers are applied Roman numerals in white gold, tall and narrow with fine serifs, standing proud with polished faces, and they sit where the ground has already darkened, which is why they hold their edges without stones or outlines behind them. The bezel is set with diamonds around its full circumference, the case is 40mm in platinum with the flat wide lugs and low band the model uses throughout, and the President bracelet runs from the lugs in polished three-piece links. A set bezel scales with the case, so the band at 40mm is broader than the same treatment at 36mm and carries more stones across a longer circumference. That changes it from an outline into a surface. At the smaller size a set ring reads as a bright edge around the dial; here it reads as a component in its own right, wide enough to be looked at rather than merely registered, and it is the reason this reference feels considerably more decorated than its 36mm counterpart despite the specification being identical.
The apertures carry the one problem a graded dial creates. Both discs are printed in a single flat value and a dial whose color changes continuously offers no single value to match, so whatever is chosen agrees with the ground at one radius and differs everywhere else. Both openings sit well out toward the rim where the gradient has deepened, so the discs read slightly lighter than the ground immediately around them, and the frames mark the boundary firmly enough that the eye reads two deliberate insets. The day is spelled out in full at twelve in words rather than three-letter abbreviations, which fixes the arc's width across every reference in the model. Both discs change instantaneously at midnight rather than creeping through the preceding hour. The movement runs roughly seventy hours off a full wind, and setting is done through the crown, with no correctors cut into the case band. The numeral ring carries a single interruption and the eye learns to expect it. The character at three gives way to the date window while the day arc at twelve sits above the ring rather than displacing anything, so the sequence is broken at one point only. On a graded dial that asymmetry is easier to absorb than it would be on a flat ground, since the surface is already changing across its width and the eye is not looking for uniformity in the first place.
Platinum receives one gradient dial and this is it. The model offers four ombre grounds and each belongs to a single metal, brown ombre and slate ombre to Everose, green ombre to yellow gold and blue ombre to the cool metals, so there is no choice to make about which gradient, only about size, bezel and whether stones go into the dial. At 40mm the set version does not exist in any metal, which removes that last question and leaves the bezel as the only decision. Blue ombre is also one of five grounds appearing on platinum at both case sizes, alongside white, mother-of-pearl set with diamonds and ice blue in both forms, so it is one of the few dials that can be compared directly across the two diameters. This reference and 228236 carry an identical fourteen configurations and differ only at the bezel. Blue ombre is also one of five grounds this metal shares specifically with white gold at 40mm, alongside bright blue, meteorite, slate and the paved dial with sapphires. Those five are the cool-metal group, and every one of them exists on a case that is visually close to indistinguishable from platinum at any normal distance. Ice blue is the only ground on the whole roster that does not.
Putting a set ring around an unset gradient is the more assertive of the two ways to have this dial, and it suits the ground better than it suits most. The dial keeps all of its subtlety, since nothing has been set into the transition where the stones would interrupt it, while the case supplies the brightness that a plain gradient can lack in poor light. That division is cleaner than it sounds: the gradient is doing the work up close and the bezel is doing it at a distance, and the two rarely compete because they occupy different radii. Collectors who find the fluted version too quiet and the fully set dials too committed tend to arrive here. For a buyer who wants the most interesting dial on the platinum roster with a case that acknowledges it, this is the configuration that pairs them. The fluted reference remains the quieter watch, and on this ground quieter is not obviously better.
