Three canvas prints used for Malta Fashion Week events outside the Hotel Phoenicia were "neatly" torn out from their display frames and stolen overnight.

Two of the prints were by Lorella Castillo and the other by Darrin Zammit Lupi.

Adrian J. Mizzi, executive producer and founder of Malta Fashion Week, said the prints were neatly cut from their displays as if to preserve their quality.

“There is no evidence of vindictiveness. Had that been the case, whoever did this would have torn the images. They did it because they wanted them.” he said.

The photos were from last year's Fashion Week and from the photographers' personal collections, Mizzi said.

A police report has been filed.

The photo by Darrin Zammit Lupi reproduced on a large canvas print that was stolen in the early hours of Wednesday.

Mizzi said the theft must have happened between midnight and 6.30am as he had seen the displays at around midnight. 

He said somebody may have seen the people involved. The prints were bulky - two by nine metres - and they were not easy to hold, let alone hide.

The organisers had been planning to keep them after the event to allow for the possibility of using them next year.

“This person decided that since Fashion Week had ended, it was his right to take the photos. Disgraceful,”  Mizzi said. 

The Fashion Week organisers also expressed their disappointment in a Facebook post.

“Yes we totally get that they are nice photos but anyone wishing to exhibit large print images of this kind should reach out to the photographers in question to purchase,” they wrote.

In her own social media post, Castillo expressed her own disappointment.

“Thank you for liking them so much, but stealing art is just a criminal and insanely disgusting act,” she wrote, emphasising that those responsible should be “ashamed”.

Zammit Lupi described whoever stole his work as a 'lowlife'.

A police spokesperson confirmed that a report has been filed and investigations are underway.