William Vintage of London Broken Into, Ransacked

dorotheascloset

dorotheascloset

Registered Guest
Saw on their FB page this morning they were broken into and robbed of "tens of thousands" in irreplaceable vintage. I cannot imagine how awful he must feel right now! I've seen some of his things on red carpet events in London/the UK....couture Dior, Ossie Clark, Connolly....he just showed a brilliant Dior suit the other day that he'd just gotten in. I hope he has pics of what was taken to at least circulate amongst dealers, just wanted to let you guys know to be on the lookout...I imagine the theives will be looking for ways to make some cash off of it.

Ang
 
thats a nightmare! but i wonder because the vintage is so distinctive that recovery might be possible? who would do this?? like where are you gonna resell it...????
 
Yeah...that's part of why I posted, so people will keep it in mind should they see any of these pieces come up. Seriously, I can't imagine who they could sell the stuff too without getting caught.
 
The only thing that I could think of is that the items were stolen to order by a rick collector, probably in another country. Maybe in Europe since there are no borders. There would be no point in trying to reflog the stuff here in the UK as it's a small island. Hell, if someone shows up ion my doorstep with designer pieces, i shall be calling the police. It would help if he could post pix of the stolen items just in case these morons try to off-load the stuff to an unsuspecting dealer in the boonies.
 
What a lousy thing to do, especially to William. He really is a wonderful person and I found him to be very approachable and kind in any dealings I have had with him. I don't know where these fools think they can off load that stuff and not get caught, which I hope they do, and fast.

By the way, What is a "rick" collector? Another of the Brit terms I am unfamiliar with?

Grrrrr!:mad:
 
Boonies=boondocks= rural/small town. But no idea what a Rick collector is.

That said, if you look over his albums you'll see some of the amazing things that were stolen. It's really awful. I can't imagine how sick he must feel over this. He is really a nice guy, at least as far as I've ascertained in my dealings with him. I hope these theives get caught quickly and the things returned.
 
Shocking! I can't imagine how awful he must be feeling right now - my heart goes out to him.

This sounds like the work of professionals, I do wonder where they'll end up. I hope he had good insurance - I live in fear of something like this happening and my stock isn't anywhere near as fabulous as his.

I'm also curious about "rick collector". We use "boonies" here in Aus too, but to us it means the same as "woop woop" which is the back of beyond, out where nothing is. We have a lot of that in Australia.
 
dorotheascloset said:
Yeah...that's part of why I posted, so people will keep it in mind should they see any of these pieces come up. Seriously, I can't imagine who they could sell the stuff too without getting caught.
Click to expand...

I imagine it would be similar to the reasons people steal well known pieces of art. There are dishonest collectors in this world who have deep pockets when it comes to adding highly desirable pieces to their private collections. The thief/ves probably had a buyer(s) lined up before they made the heist. Is it really possible they are uneducated enough about vintage to only know that some of it is remarkably valuable and think they could openly fence such scarce and identifiable items without people realizing where they came from? Maybe I'm reading too much into the photos, but it looks like the theif/ves targeted specific items and tossed others aside --- like they had a "shopping list" made out in advance.

I feel positively sick for William and hope the items are found and perpetrators brought to justice.
 
I agree Leigh - it very much sounds like some pieces were targeted. The fact that he was still able to open at 9am for appointments show that it wasn't just a trashing, certain pieces were stolen.

How awful for him. It doesn't get much worse than this.
 
That makes sense....how frightening to think that we put out there online exactly what we have (not that I have the level of things he had) for thieves to see.
 
You wonder if it was mainly those wonderful pieces you could view on facebook.

One of our dealer colleagues just told us on Saturday about someone who had their home featured in the Real Estate section of our daily newspaper here in Montreal.
A week later the place was broken into and the antiques that were shown in the paper were taken. They knew exactly where to go as the photos showed which room the objects
that interested the thieves was located.
 
That is shocking and just horrible. Those photos with the bent and tossed mannequins makes me want to cry. It's such a personal assault. We all know how connected we feel to our pieces and how we value them beyond the monetary. I really hope that because this was such a specific and unusual robbery that they are able to find these thugs. Boy, you know vintage clothing has hit mainstream relevance when a store such as this is targeted. Who would have ever thought.
 
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