quality wigs are in high demand—and susceptible to theft

sometime after three a.m. on Sept. 7, a thief crawled in the course of the back of a closet in a specialty wig store on West Broadway in Vancouver, having smashed a hole in the course of the wall of a neighbouring tea shop with a crowbar. Knocking over some paint cans within the technique, the thief emerged into the save's returned room and started stuffing over $350,000 value of wigs into a garbage bag taken from below one of the most cabinets. before the thief escaped through the parking storage, some of the wigs' tags—labelled "six-12 months-historical"—fluttered to the ground. It became picked up later that morning by using Eva & Co. Wigs' save co-owner, Cindy Yip, as she surveyed the scene alongside participants of the Vancouver police. "It turned into worse than I expected," remembers Yip. "They took relatively an awful lot every little thing, and in specific loads of the youngsters' wigs." Of the one hundred fifty stolen, 15 wigs were destined for B.C. babies's clinic as part of a non-profit firm that components free wigs to children with hair loss.a week later, 66 of the wigs were recovered in a Downtown Eastside inn; a resident within the building called police after she saw a bag filled with hair within the hallway and linked it to the heist on the information. The wigs, despite the fact, were not usable. "They have been sitting in a garbage bag for two weeks," says Yip. "It's not something i'd ever want to put on any person's head."read: The saga of Canada's stolen million-dollar coinThe heist turned into the store's third break-in over the past 4 years. established in 1971 by way of Yip's spouse's mother, Eva & Co. provides herbal-looking wigs to a wide variety of customers, from film stars like Lindsay Lohan and Tyra Banks to people going via chemotherapy or suffering from alopecia. And w hile a wig save may also look an not going goal for theft, top notch human-hair wigs like the ones Eva & Co. makes in-apartment promote for $2,500 each and every, or up to $3,500 for custom orders."The first question they ask is, 'Will it seem herbal?' " Yip says of her consumers, mainly those affected by medically related hair loss. "They're already going via so a good deal. They don't want anything extra to be distinct." The manner of creating a wig that doesn't seem like a wig is tedious, no longer to mention costly. "Virgin," or untreated, human hair is sourced from Europe and brought to the cap through a technique known as hand-tying, or venting, through which one strand is affixed at a time using a tool akin to a crochet needle. "you're taking the one hair, you set it during the hook, you put the hook through the wig cap, you pull it back, you tie it in a knot, you get a different hair," explains keep manager Frances Rae. A vented wig can take as long as 60 hours to create, and that's for an skilled wig-maker like worker Suzanna Fung. Now 65, she began working as a wig-maker in Hong Kong on the age of 12.The procedure may additionally seem hard, nonetheless it's why the save's wigs are sought-after through film stars and patients—and interestingly thieves. "Even oncologists will say, 'Oh my gosh, you haven't lost your hair yet?' " Yip says of the wigs. "That's how natural they seem to be."but fine takes time, and with so many orders coming in without delay, valued clientele can usually predict a 3-month look ahead to custom wigs. Yip and her co-worker's had just finished a batch of custom orders when the theft took place. instead of calling to tell purchasers that their wigs were finally able to be picked up, they had to ruin the information that their lengthy-awaited wigs had been stolen.Then, exactly 4 months after the robbery took place, police instructed Yip they had arrested a suspect th ey believed responsible for the heist: 52-12 months-historic Martin Weigelt. "attending to the charge approval stage took loads of work with the aid of our detectives, but we're rather chuffed with the arrest that we've made," says Sgt. Jason Robillard.With 84 wigs unaccounted for, the investigation into the destroy-in at Eva & Co. continues to be open. One resident of the lodge where the wigs have been discovered told Maclean's he'd viewed sex workers who reside there wearing them, but he had now not reported the tips to police. whereas most of Yip's shoppers need hair to maintain their identity, many sex employees use it to cover their own.regardless of where the wigs ended up, the hurt had already been done. "americans were so deflated," says Rae. "after I known as clients to tell them their wigs were long past, a couple of them simply burst into tears."more ABOUT CANADA:the upward thrust of an uncaring CanadaWhy does Canada now haven't any women premiers? because it's 2019Why Jason Kenney's workaholic style may additionally not work when he's premierIs it time for a strategic retreat from carbon pricing?