Welcome to Wikipedia,
7,191,892 articles in English
Overview · Editing · Questions · Help

Contents · Categories · Featured content · A–Z index

Today's featured article

Razor clamshell dress from Voss
Razor clamshell dress from Voss

Voss is the seventeenth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Spring/Summer 2001 season of his fashion house. Voss drew on imagery of madness and nature to question beauty standards and critique the fashion industry, with showpiece designs made from unusual materials such as razor clam shells (dress pictured), an antique Japanese screen, and microscope slides. The runway show was staged on 26 September 2000 in London, inside a room-sized mirrored glass cube, the audience seated outside. The interior was styled to look like an insane asylum and models were directed to act unwell. In the finale, a glass cube inside shattered to reveal Michelle Olley, fat, nude, and covered in moths. Critical response was positive, especially towards the showpieces and the performance art aspect. The show is regarded as one of McQueen's best, and has attracted a large amount of academic analysis. Several ensembles appeared in the retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. (Full article...)

Did you know

Burmese hare
Burmese hare

In the news

This day in history

June 7

Surinam Airways Flight 764
Surinam Airways Flight 764
More anniversaries:

Today's featured media

The Astronomer

The Astronomer is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1668. The work depicts an astronomer studying a celestial globe beside a copy of Adriaan Metius's Institutiones Astronomicae Geographicae. Closely related to Vermeer's The Geographer, it is thought to portray the same sitter, possibly Antonie van Leeuwenhoek; a 2017 study showed that both paintings were made from canvas cut from the same bolt. The painting was seized by the Nazis from the Rothschild family during the Second World War, returned to them when the war concluded, and acquired by the French state in 1983. It is now in the collection of the Louvre in Paris.

Painting credit: Johannes Vermeer

Recently featured:

Other areas of Wikipedia

  • Community portal – The central hub for editors, with resources, links, tasks, and announcements.
  • Village pump – Forum for discussions about Wikipedia itself, including policies and technical issues.
  • Site news – Sources of news about Wikipedia and the broader Wikimedia movement.
  • Teahouse – Ask basic questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
  • Help desk – Ask questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
  • Reference desk – Ask research questions about encyclopedic topics.
  • Content portals – A unique way to navigate the encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is part of the non-profit, multilingual, free-content Wikimedia Foundation family.
Wikipedia Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
Wikinews Wikinews
News
Wiktionary Wiktionary
Dictionary
Wikibooks Wikibooks
Textbooks
Wikisource Wikisource
Source texts
Wikiquote Wikiquote
Quotations
Wikispecies Wikispecies
Species directory
Wikiversity Wikiversity
Learning tools
Commons Commons
Free media
Meta-Wiki Meta-Wiki
Coordination