GILDED BIRDS – Snapshots of Beauty

Lily McMenamy, model and performance maker, on her copy of  The Testament of the Dead Daughter by Colette Thomas.
GB Tell me why you chose this.
LM I don’t have a lot of things that I hold onto. I’ve lived in so many different countries and different flats. When my mum moved house all my childhood stuff was gone and when my dad died all his stuff was gone. When I moved from New York so much got...

Lucie Whitmore, Fashion Curator at the Museum of London, on a Peggy Lewis dress.
GB Tell me why you chose this.
LW I think this dress has always been really special to me. If pushed, I’d say that it’s my favourite object in our Fashion City exhibition. I thought about objects outside the exhibition too but I’m always pulled back to this. It’s a combination of...

Harold Offeh, artist, on a Grace Jones album sleeve
GB Tell me why you chose this.
HO There’s a long preface in that I’m very indecisive anyway, but maybe because of the art training I’ve had, the idea of a beautiful object is something I got really stuck in. But I’ve worked with images of Grace Jones for a long time and I’ve done...

Igor Toronyi-Lalic, arts editor of the Spectator and director of the London Contemporary Music Festival, on a screenshot from the Abbas Kiarostami film, “Where is the friend’s house?”
GB Tell me why you chose this.
ITL Images within films are never just stand-alone images. This image is an amazing summation of everything in the film in a strange, sublime, transcendental way. It’s very rare for there to be one image in a film that is such a summation of everything...