- Original Article
Titanic tampering with gown
GREAT BARRINGTON -- The century-old sequins are gone. The material is ripped. And -- with no signs of a break-in -- it’s a mystery who’s at fault.
A genuine whodunnit is under way in town.
At the center of the case: A 1909 black, sequined evening gown its owner says is worth at least $3,000. Sometime last month, where it was kept at the Mason Library in Great Barrington, it was damaged. A tear in the fabric. Sequins missing.
And with no clear culprit, the owners claim a library employee vandalized the vintage dress. Town officials retort that it’s just as likely the owners are at fault.
"It’s very probable that [the gown] will never be wearable again -- no matter how much restoration is done. I think this is absolutely sick," said K. Andrews Dietrich, whose business partner owns the gown as part of their traveling display of Titanic-era memorabilia.
The dress was exhibited in a display case at the library, alongside other period artifacts, for a Titanic-themed exhibit.
Denise Vanaria owns the dress and has appeared in "Titanic The Experience," an Orlando, Fla.-based re-creation of the doomed ship before it sunk. In February, Vanaria hosted a presentation -- wearing a different period gown -- on the doomed voyage for a Titanic-themed event at library.
Dietrich claims someone "severely damaged" the back of the dress, pulling off sequins and tearing the material.
The damage wasn’t discovered until its exhibition at the Mason Library ended. But because the dress was in a locked case that bore no signs of being broken into, Dietrich alleges one of the fewer than six library officials who had access to the key must have done it.
Furthermore, she said, because the damage was extensive and the display case was in full view of the public, it must have been done when the library was closed.
"To do so, it took minutes -- not seconds -- scraping cloth off, ripping and tearing," she said. It was "someone who had gone in there, who had access to the key, and access to the library after hours."
Vanaria and Dietrich are offering a $5,000 bounty for anyone who has information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case. Vanaria was unavailable for comment.
No other artifacts were damaged, and the claim has been turned over to the town’s insurer for review and investigation.
But town officials say they are not culpable for the damage.
"We dispute the fact that there was any inside job, so to speak, that the employees intentionally damaged any of the artifacts," said O’Donnell. "[The owners] had access to it, so it could easily have been damaged by one of their own people."
Anne Just, director of the Great Barrington libraries, said it could have also happened when the exhibitors had the materials removed from the library.
"We watched them pick the stuff up and they were not as careful as you would expect," she said, adding that she is also skeptical because the claim was made several days after the display was removed.
Dietrich said she remains "stupefied" by the act, and has lost trust in the town.
"This means you have a town, in which you trust, that has an employee that’s vandalizing property, on town property," said Dietrich. "So I don’t know that it gets any worse than that."
Dietrich said an antique postcard was laid over the dress and had to be removed to gain access to the gown.
She said she is awaiting the results of a fingerprint analysis by the Great Barrington Police Department and hopes library employees submit their fingerprints to potentially clear their names.