u/bogprism

I'm working on archiving some traditional garments, mostly from selling platforms like ebay and etsy. I've received permission from a number of sellers to use their images, and I'd like to eventually include them in some kind of online archive.

I have two problems.

First, I have no idea where to host this that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg. I would put it on my personal website, but the amount of image files would use up my available storage pretty fast. The whole idea of this project is to preserve these cultural artifacts for the people of the culture and for future researchers, so the online aspect is kind of crucial.

Second, I don't have a lot of information for most of these garments. I have what's on the online listing, and that's about it. I question the usability of the archive if I don't have proper information and citations, and I don't want to accidentally contribute to misinformation if a seller's description is incorrect. That said, if I don't archive these garments before they disappear into private collections, they'll be (in most cases) effectively erased from the historical narrative.

I'm a bit out of my depth with this project as I'm not a trained archivist, I'm just someone with a lot of passion and a desire to slow the erasure of culture. I figured it would be good to get some opinions from some actual archivists, hence the post. Any information or ideas anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

My grandfather was Palestinian, but I didn’t grow up with a whole lot of the culture or language because of assimilation and shame. I want to connect with my ancestry and learn more about the culture that was stolen from me a generation ago. I have a lot of questions about the experience and ethics of doing something like this, and I have no idea where to ask.

I'm working on a project archiving cultural garment photos that I'm taking from marketplace sites like ebay. I have one seller who's given me explicit permission to use their images, but many that have not responded. Can I use any of the images from the latter group of sellers in my project if it's for educational and archival purposes? Does the seller own the image copyright or does ebay? I was having trouble figuring this out from their policies

Let me start by saying that I know there are a lot of really good and properly sourced historical thobes in books and a few websites. I've checked a lot of those out already, but in my online research I came across vintage or antique cultural garments being sold on platforms like ebay and poshmark. I don't feel great about the ethics of the actual sale of these garments as they're almost never sourced, nor do I feel great about the idea of them disappearing into a private collection.

I archive things as a personal hobby/habit, and I found myself saving some of these listing images and adding them to my database with metadata. I had the thought that these should be shared for public reference, but most of these listings include little information about the garments and I'm not currently knowledgeable enough to discern the origins of a piece by looking at it. Would these images even be helpful without that information?

There's also the small issue of sharing some of these without permission from the sellers who technically own the images. I do have explicit permission to share images from one ebay seller, but that's not the norm.

I'm wondering what this sub thinks about sharing the images I don't have permission to use in an effort to preserve as much cultural heritage as possible? Would a digital archive like this be useful to any of you, or should I just keep it in my personal database? I worry that the lack of credit and information in general about the garments makes for a poor archiving process. The dubious nature of their histories also makes me worry about the ethics of a project like this.

My favorite costume from the movie (source linked further below)

I recently watched the 1962 movie, Jack the Giant Killer, and absolutely fell in love with the costumes. Since I have a blog where I research and write about things that pique my interest, I thought this would be a perfect topic to write a short and quick blog about. I was mistaken. Hours of research later, I figured I might as well make a post here to see if anyone had any information or sources they could point me to.

I wanted to touch on the costume designer and their other work, and ended up uncovering more questions than answers. David Berman is listed as the designer for just this movie and Comanche on IMDB and similar movie sites, but I suspect this is incomplete. Berman founded the Hollywood branch of Bermans & Nathans, a costume house based in London and started by his father. The Hollywood branch was called Max Berman & Sons, inc.

I've found articles that say that Berman worked on a plethora of movies, shows, and theater productions, including making costumes for both My Fair Lady and Cleopatra. This is a pretty big jump from the mere two movies he's most often credited for, but I'm struggling to find primary sources for any of his other work.

I had thought that I might be able to contact the costume house and see if they had any additional information, but their business license expired in 2001, and they sold over 800 costumes in an auction in 1971. I've purchased the auction catalog and am waiting for it to come in so I can see if it contains pictures of any of the costumes from Jack the Giant Killer, as well as information about any more productions Berman might've worked on.

Below are a few images of the costumes from the movie, which I screencapped from this youtube video. Unfortunately the resolution is not super high, so it's hard to see a lot of the details. I'd love to uncover some production photos, but it seems likely that those are lost to time.

https://preview.redd.it/mxjhze2wetxg1.png?width=1228&format=png&auto=webp&s=e241d99c8b33d6946f97c5d4a6385180c7d62947

https://preview.redd.it/ain8k3dtetxg1.png?width=2070&format=png&auto=webp&s=e659bee7e6e7c822e1dc7c5efe4c545104e93178

https://preview.redd.it/7w7mamvoetxg1.png?width=956&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b00efe963a8a32250c4e76addaa6858880251da

Essentially, I'm writing this post to ask if any of the lovely people on this subreddit have any additional leads or information they might be able to share about either the movie's costumes, or the career of David Berman. An extra bonus would be help tracking down the original costumes, though I doubt that's possible at this point. I'd seriously appreciate any help, as I feel like I've hit a wall with my research.