Until Thursday morning, fashion-supply icon Joe Vecchiarelli thought nothing could surprise him.
The owner of the largest sewing supply center in the U.S., who has been featured on network TV reality shows, Vecchiarelli had driven a Penske rental truck to Federal Way from his fashion supply shop in Los Angeles. He loaded the truck with three tons of sewing supplies, including 200 expensive French dress-form mannequins, to display at the Puyallup Sewing and Stitchery Expo.
Sometime Wednesday night, thieves stole the Penske truck—along with $1,000,000 worth of dressmaking cargo--from the parking lot of the Quality Inn and Suites. Vecchiarelli was stunned.
“I thought, 'Am I dreaming? Is there no truck here, really?'”
Vecchiarelli was shown the hotel’s surveillance video, which shows a white dual-wheeled pickup truck pulling in at about 5:50 a.m., then leaving a minute later with the rental truck following it.
Faced with opening a large sewing exhibitor’s booth with no items to sell at the expo, Vecchiarelli found humor in the outrageous crime.
“I’d love to see the thieves' reaction when they see what they stole,” he said, laughing out loud. “They're going to find a bunch of dead mannequins! The joke will be on them!"
Vecchiarelli says he hopes the thieves will realize the only buyers of stolen $,1400 European dress-form mannequins are haute couture fashion designers, and he noted there are few of those in Federal Way.
“Not too many people are going to know mannequins out there who understand where these French-European (dress forms) came from,” he said, adding a personal statement to the thieves. “Please, you're going to get found, this is hot merchandise. It’s useless to you, and you will be found!"
Vecchiarelli said if he recovers the items before the weekend, he’ll put them in his exhibit at the expo, which ends Sunday.
“We don’t want to disappoint people who are here from all over the country who came here to buy supplies like dress forms.”
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