Masked thieves have been caught on camera smashing into a Sloane Square optician owned by celebrity eyewear designer Tom Davies and stealing £500,000 worth of frames.
The thieves even stole glasses designed for the new Disney movie Cruella from the high-end eyewear store in west London.
CCTV footage shows the thieves using a concrete block to smash their way into the store before helping themselves to hundreds of frames.
With the burglar alarm blaring away, the pair unceremoniously sweep hundreds of pairs of frames into a shopping bag and managed to seize six bespoke frames made especially for Cruella.
Masked thieves have been caught on camera smashing into a Sloane Square optician owned by Tom Davies and stealing £500,000 worth of frames
The thieves even stole glasses designed for the new Disney movie Cruella from the high-end eyewear store in west London
Despite dropping several pairs of glasses on the floor, they were in and out within 50 seconds and scarpered before police were able to respond.
Mr Davies, 46, intended to auction the frames for charity before discovering they were missing after the 2am raid last week.
‘It’s quite sinister in a lot of ways when you watch the video,’ he told MailOnline.
‘It’s not my home but it feels like it. All my staff are devastated. In the film, Jasper and Horace are petty thieves who go about stealing from people and these two burglars are just like Jasper and Horace with face masks on.
With the burglar alarm blaring away, the pair unceremoniously sweep hundreds of pairs of frames into a shopping bag and managed to seize six bespoke frames made especially for Cruella
Mr Davies (pictured), 46, intended to auction the frames for charity before discovering they were missing after the 2am raid last week
‘I had six pairs of the most iconic frames in the centre console, including both Emma Thompson’s and Emma Stone’s sunglasses and cat eyes. They are very valuable to me but they are so recognisable they won’t be able to sell them on.
‘Luckily we still have one set so, as long as we can get the window repaired, we can still go ahead. But I shall keep them under lock and key until then.’
The auction will be in aid of global charity Orbis International, which aims to fight avoidable blindness in the developing world.
Staff arrived at the store to discover the store had been ram-raided at 2.13am and the windows had been boarded up after the alarm was tripped and police called.
Pictured: Emma Stone wearing a pair of glasses designed by Mr Davies in a scene from Cruella
Mr Davies is now planning to put up wild west-style wanted posters
Mr Davies, who lives in Petersham, south west London, with wife Kirsten, 44, and children Oscar, 14, and Amelia, 12, is now planning to put up wild west-style wanted posters.
They will read: ‘WANTED! #TomDaviesTheft’ – on lamp posts in the hope that someone will return them.
‘If you are offered any sunglasses with ‘TOM DAVIES FOR CRUELLA’ engraved on the inside arm, please can you let us know @tdtomdavies,’ the posters state.
‘Our store was broken into on 9 June at 2am and hundreds of frames were taken.
‘The thieves probably didn’t know they had also stolen glasses recently made for the film Cruella which were due to be auctioned off for charity.
‘These distinctive frames have a far bigger value at a charity auction than to the criminals who vandalised our store and will struggle to sell them.
Mr Davies said: ‘The thieves probably didn’t know they had also stolen glasses recently made for the film Cruella which were due to be auctioned off for charity’
‘If you are offered any of these frames or have any information you can share, please let us or the local police know. If you have the glasses in your possession, we will swap them for a pair of Tom Davies sunglasses.
‘Unless you’re one of the thieves, in which case we will happily hand you over to the authorities.’
Mr Davies was commissioned by Cruella’s Oscar-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan to create a pair of glasses for Emma Thompson, who plays Baroness von Hellman, the narcissistic head of a London fashion house, in the movie.
But he ended up making 120 frames – for nearly every member of the cast. ‘It had to be a really amazing signature piece for this elite fashion designer,’ added Davies.
‘When I was doing it, I said to her: ‘You do realise everyone wore glasses in the 1970s because there was no laser surgery, there were no contact lenses.’
Davies is known for his off-the-wall approach, making glasses out of crushed meteorites and glow-in-the-dark stars, in his Brentford factory
‘So we got the archive photos out and there were all these fashionable ladies wearing glasses. From that moment on I was the official glasses man for Cruella.’
Davies is known for his off-the-wall approach, making glasses out of crushed meteorites and glow-in-the-dark stars, in his Brentford factory.
He earned his reputation as the King of Specs after bespectacling celebrities including Ed Sheeran, Heston Blumenthal, Carrie Fisher and Susannah Constantine.
He has also created frames for a dozen Hollywood films including Superman, Spiderman, Angelina Jolie in the Tourist, Brad Pitt in Allied, Rowan Atkinson in Keeping Mum.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘Police were called at 02:13hrs on Wednesday, 9 June to reports of a burglary at a commercial property in Sloane Square, SW1.
‘Officers attended and it was reported that a quantity of sunglasses had been stolen by a group of men who had left before police arrived. Enquiries are ongoing; there have been no arrests.’
