One good thing about Benito Mussolini—probably the only one—was his eye for daring design. To look at the meti-culous sprawl of the Foro Italico, the grand sports complex Il Duce built in Rome, is to witness the intersection of high modernism and unrestrained masculinity, the heroic ideal rendered colossal. In 1942, Mussolini's war department commissioned Ilvo Fontana—of Officine Fontana, manufacturers of high-precision instruments—to produce wristwatches for Italian Air Force pilots and U-boat officers. While you should thank the Allied forces that the project never amounted to much back then, you can also extend gratitude to Italo Fontana, a grandson of Ilvo's, for reinterpreting the original scheme and creating U-Boat, an outfit presenting arguably the largest watches on the market and assuredly the boldest.

In 1999, Italo—then an industrial designer in his own right—happened across Ilvo's original plans, color samples, and prototypes. "Seeing my granddad's first drawings stimulated me, and my emotions drove me toward the beginnings of a new philosophy," he says. The philosophy boils down to this: If bigger is better, then very big is best. The models in U-Boat's Flightdeck series clock in at a monumental 55 millimeters in diameter, and each boasts an arresting thickness to match. All feature a left-hand crown-and-hook mechanism suited to the demands of the cockpit. In fact, one of the few elements of U-Boat watches without a military precedent is the name. A passionate scuba diver who hails from the seaside town of Lucca, Fontana first wanted to call the brand Your Boat, but then decided to try something sleeker, doubtlessly reasoning that very few 21st-century shoppers consider Axis Unterseebooten a clear and present danger.

Since 2005, Fontana has relied on the marketing savvy of Mounir Moufarrige, a luxury-goods expert most famous for reinventing the pen business. "I, as you know, developed Montblanc from nothing," the 57-year-old but still compact and energetic Moufarrige notes modestly. "At the time, all the other pens were thin, and Montblanc defied the market. It was chunky, but it had the possibility of becoming a fetish." The same dynamic is in play with U-Boat, and Moufarrige is confident it won't be eclipsed by any other brands. "I think 55 millimeters is the max. I looked at a 60- and a 65-, and they were clumsy," he says, explaining that even an extra 5 millimeters—about the thickness of a slim CD case—invites ergonomic disaster. Besides, those 55-millimeter models already command a huge audience, including Cee-Lo Green, half of the pop superduo Gnarls Barkley. "I like a watch that carries its weight. U-Boat doesn't get lost on me," Cee-Lo says, before boasting, "I was among the first to land one of these bad boys."

Moufarrige adds, "I love the black one with yellow numerals. It gets attention. I'm human, you know, and people who say 'I don't like attention' are hypocrites."

digg this | add to del.icio.us | add to reddit | add to newsvine