Datejust 41 Mint Green · Fluted · Jubilee

This Datejust combines a mint-green dial, a fluted white-gold bezel and a steel Jubilee bracelet.

The Datejust was introduced in 1945 as an automatic watch with a date window. It has since become a large family of colors, sizes and metal combinations. This version uses several of its oldest visual features—the date magnifier, fluted ring and five-link bracelet—around a much newer dial color.

Reference 126334 identifies the 41-millimeter steel-and-white-gold model; this specific configuration is m126334-0028. Other watches carrying the same base reference can have different dials and bracelets.

The dial's sunray finish consists of fine grooves radiating from the center. Light reflects differently along those lines, so the green does not read as one flat patch. Straight metal hour markers keep the pattern from taking over the face.

There is a related effect outside the dial. The fluted bezel divides its white-gold surface into repeated ridges, while the Jubilee bracelet uses five smaller links across each row rather than the Oyster bracelet's three. The dial, bezel and bracelet therefore break up reflections at different scales. That is why this combination looks busier than a smooth-bezel Datejust, even though both have the same three hands and date.

The movement is calibre 3235, with automatic winding and roughly seventy hours of running reserve. It is a contemporary mechanism inside a layout that has accumulated its familiar details over decades.

The green is distinctive, but it does not do all the design work. Put the same color beside a smooth bezel and an Oyster bracelet and the result is much plainer. Here the fluting and Jubilee are as important as the dial.