The Spider-Man Burglar

Turin, 2017. A man identifies a third-floor apartment as a burglary target. The owners are away. The doors are locked. So he stands in the street and looks up. He grabs the wrought iron of a first-floor balcony and pulls himself up. Then the second floor. Then he reaches for the third — and his trousers catch on a decorative flourish of the railing.

He spends the next hour suspended three storeys up, hanging by his denim. His hands cannot reach the third-floor balcony. His feet cannot reach the second. The fabric, against all expectations, holds. A crowd gathers in the street. People come out of nearby buildings. Phones are pointed at him from every angle. The Vigili del Fuoco arrive with a ladder. A firefighter climbs up. Determines that he cannot simply be lifted because his trousers are structurally load-bearing. Cuts him down.

Kit and Eden on the man who made his face the most photographed object in Turin for an afternoon, the load-bearing properties of denim, and the day when wrought iron decided to do its job.