THE FLYING CRANE

A MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL x SHANGRILA FILM PRODUCTION

Maison Margiela's Bianchetto process begins with concealment. Raw denim is painted entirely white - stiff, sealed, its true surface hidden underneath. The paint is not decoration. It is a starting condition. What the garment becomes depends entirely on how it is worn, how much it is moved in, how completely the paint is allowed to break. The philosophy was built around the gradual accumulation of lived movement, a slow revelation that comes from wearing something long enough and hard enough that it has no choice but to show itself.
THE FLYING CRANE asked what happens when that accumulation is compressed into a single session. When the movement isn't gradual but extreme. When Bianchetto is taken further than the philosophy was designed to reach.
The collection was conceived, executed, and edited entirely by MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL and was captured by SHANGRILA FILM. The movements chose span the full range of what a human body does when it leaves the ground - from the classical extension of a ballet jump to the explosive angular force of aerial taekwondo kicks. Two disciplines with almost nothing in common except that both require the body to be completely airborne and completely committed simultaneously. Ballet exists to be looked at. Taekwondo exists to make contact. Together, they represent the widest possible argument for what movement can be, and both of them are destroying the paint.
To our knowledge, Bianchetto has never been taken to this extreme. It has been walked in, sat in, lived in. It has not been launched from, kicked from, or suspended from midair. The question this collection puts to the philosophy is simple: if movement is what makes the garment beautiful, how beautiful does it become at the limit of what movement can physically be.
The model wears a white mask. The decision was directorial. In any portrait, the face is the dominant focal point - the eye arrives there first and stays regardless of what else is happening in the frame. The mask removes that anchor entirely. With no face to settle on, viewers have nowhere to look but where the collection needs them to look: the body suspended in the air, the jeans under maximum physical stress, the paint cracking under a force it was never designed to withstand. The mask asks you to watch what the body is doing while it is up there.
There are still photographs of extreme movement with the medium working against itself, freezing the body at the exact instant of maximum displacement from the ground. What the camera captured is not the initial starting point of the kick or the jump. It captured the instance at which the denim is most alive, the paint most broken, the garment most complete itself.
A crane is never more beautiful than when it is mid-flight. Bianchetto is never more beautiful than when it has been worn.

Captured by SHANGRILA FILM
Model is JAMES NGUYEN (Instagram: @james._.nguyen07)



Image of masked model doing an aerial kick with motion blur, black and white with caption "The Flying Crane"
Dual display of masked model in white jeans in the midst of performing an aerial kick with motion blur and in black and white.
Image of masked model in white jeans finishing an aerial kick with motion blur and in black and white.
three stacked images of masked model in perplexed and candid moments while performing an aerial kick with motion blur and in black and white.
Image of masked model wearing white jeans performing a static jump with arms in the air
Black and white triptych of a figure performing taekwondo movements including aerial kick and jump in Bianchetto white jeans, The Flying Crane, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Wide format black and white motion blur photograph of a figure inthe midst of an aerial kick, body dissolving into movement, The Flying Crane, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Extreme close-up macro black and white photograph of cracking white Bianchetto paint on denim fabric, Margiela philosophy, movement and wear, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Four-panel black and white motion study of a figure in dynamic movement poses, Bianchetto white jeans, motion blur photography, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Two overlapping black and white photographs of figures in dynamic aerial movement, staggered layout, motion blur, The Flying Crane, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Black and white wide-format photograph of a figure suspended mid-leap, body dissolving into extreme motion blur against a light background, movement photography, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Close-up black and white photograph of hands gripping white Bianchetto denim fabric, Margiela inspired fashion photography, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Conceptual composite photograph with red-lit torso inset against black and white figure in white Bianchetto jeans, raised hand, experimental fashion photography, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Black and white motion blur photograph of a masked figure performing an aerial high kick, martial arts movement photography, Bianchetto white jeans, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
Macro black and white photograph of white Bianchetto denim pocket with red cross detail, selective colour, Margiela fashion photography, MINUSELEVEN AUDIOVISUAL
↑Back to Top