Criminally smooth in your smock. You fell for her and we fell for it. We fell for mona — a pretty woman's beguiling smile.‍

DaVinci’s Mona Lisa had been regarded as a great work of art before it was even finished. But it wasn’t the most valuable or famous painting in the Louvre, let alone the world, until August 22, 1911. That’s the day news broke the Mona Lisa had been stolen.  As the media propagated its image around the world, people flocked to the Louvre to view the empty space where the painting once hung.

The thief was Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian immigrant to France and maintenance worker at the Louvre. He and two conspirators removed the portrait from the wall, hid in a closet overnight, and absconded with it the next morning as patrons filled the galleries. He was tried and convicted after attempting to sell it to an art dealer two years later. Upon its return to the Louvre, the world had irreversibly become obsessed with the Mona Lisa. It’s an obsession that to this day compels tourists from around the world to queue for hours, eager to catch a glimpse (and a selfie) of the celebrity portrait.

WAVE 0.5 is the first WAVE in RUNWAY 5, a limited pre-release series of five WAVES spotlighting watershed works of art in debt to their context.