The Curious Eye: A Love Affair with Lives We Never Lived

Have you ever found yourself staring at an old photograph of a stranger or distant relative, completely entranced? That unknown smile, a glance caught mid-laugh, the unmistakable softness of a well-worn coat. Each detail whispers a story you’ll never quite know. There’s something we find deliciously intrusive yet deeply affectionate about looking at other people’s pasts, as if, just for a moment, we could slip into their world, feel what they felt, and live what they lived in that very moment. Read more in The Curious Eye: A Love Affair with Lives We Never Lived

Image on the left-hand side is from Dressed to Impress: The Anonymous Project

Curiosity; is it something that drives us? Could it be why we pause at forgotten postcards in antique shops, why we linger over a face in a crowd that reminds us of someone we once knew? Perhaps it’s simply human nature; our curiosity is drawn to beauty and tenderness all around us, the quiet poetry of fleeting expressions and half-told stories.

It’s an instinct embedded in us, a natural nosiness if you like, the need to observe, to understand, to piece together the fragments of a life that isn’t our own; maybe we can learn something. In a way, it’s survival. To look, to learn, to adapt. But there’s also something else, something tender: an unspoken recognition of our shared humanity. A longing to find something of ourselves in the strangers that come before us.

Image from The Anonymous Project – Dressed to Impress

In the 1950s, America was the land of the free, bursting with neon-lit optimism and the thrill of endless possibility. Britain, by contrast, still bore the weight of grey drab post-war rationing, its streets lined with a peculiar mix of resilience and resignation. And yet, in both places, life carried on in strikingly similar ways.

There were parties, birthdays, first loves, and heartbreaks. Hands tucked into pockets, feet kicked up onto sofas, the quiet joy of a sunlit afternoon. The details may shift, but the essence remains the same; we are all just living, dressing up, reaching for something, even if we don’t quite know what it is.

Photographs are novels without words, portals to lives we will never meet but somehow understand. A tilt of a hat, a floral dress on a woman caught mid-spin, each image a silent witness to a world that once was, a world that shaped the one we now inhabit.

And what a thrill it is to step into those moments, to abandon the certainty of our own era and immerse ourselves in the social codes, desires, and everyday dramas of another time. To look at a face and wonder, ‘Who were you? What did you dream of? Did you ever feel as lost as I do now?’

Image from The Anonymous Project – Dressed to Impress

For previous generations, family photo albums served as a gateway to the past, a carefully curated record of lives that had shaped our own. Each page told a story, each face a character, in the family’s ongoing narrative. These albums weren’t just collections of images; they were physical proof of existence, of relationships, of moments that mattered.

They allowed people to check their lineage, to see echoes of themselves in their ancestors, to remember that they, too, were part of something bigger than just their own experiences. Flipping through them was an act of connection, a way to step into a life that came before, to wonder at the familiarity of a smile or the way time had transformed a face.

Image from The Anonymous Project – Dressed to Impress

Photography has always been a means of checking our place in the world. Whether they be of connected people or total strangers. From the early daguerreotypes (early photographic process) of the 19th century to the modern-day selfie, the camera captures a version of ourselves we want to preserve or project. In the past, a single photograph was a precious artefact, carefully composed, a moment chosen to represent a life.

Today, we capture thousands, discarding what doesn’t fit the narrative we wish to tell. But in those old images, the ones left behind in shoeboxes or charity shops, we find rawness, unfiltered glimpses of life as it truly was. There is no second take, no curation; just people, existing in the moment, unaware that they will one day be studied with fascination. 

This idea of ‘checking’ ourselves, our identities, our progress, our history; is at the heart of the new book ‘Dressed to Impress: The Anonymous Project’. A treasure trove of more than two hundred vibrant, forgotten photographs, this book is a love letter to the everyday people of the 1950s and 60s, their fashions, their joys, and their beautifully ordinary moments.

Image from The Anonymous Project – Dressed to Impress

In these Kodachrome snapshots, life is not beige and constrained as we might imagine, but loud, exuberant, and brimming with colour and personality. A woman tilted her head just so, a man caught mid-wink, a family standing proudly by their brand-new car.

In 2017, filmmaker Lee Shulman stumbled upon a box of old Kodachrome slides. Unstaged and unfiltered, these images have never been published before, making them all the more magnetic. This collection offers an intimate window into not just what we wore, but who we were in a world that now feels impossibly distant yet achingly familiar. Each image is a relic of the past, captured by unknown photographers, anonymous hands preserving fleeting moments, never knowing their work would one day be rediscovered.

The power of curiosity is not confined to the past; it is what propels us forward. Charles and Ray Eames, visionary designers whose work reshaped modern architecture, furniture, and visual culture, believed that curiosity was the key to innovation.

Curiosity is the invisible thread that connects past, present, and future, a force that shapes how we see, think, and create. The Eames Institute’s ‘Curious 100’ is an initiative that celebrates those who embody this spirit: designers, activists, chefs, and artists who harness curiosity to push boundaries and reimagine what’s possible. More than just a recognition, ‘The Curious 100’ is a testament to the power of asking questions, challenging norms, and seeing the world through fresh eyes.

Much like an old photograph invites us into another time, ‘The Curious 100′ encourages us to view the world anew. Curiosity isn’t just a way to explore history; it’s the spark that shapes the future. And while they say curiosity killed the cat, does it really matter when it has nine lives?

Failure is an aspect of being curious. We don’t always walk in a straight line.

Jamie Blosser  – Community Developer, The Curious 100

Life is always winking at us; catching the light in a rain-slicked street, dancing in the wrinkles of a stranger’s smile, resting quietly in the pages of a well-thumbed book. Yet how often do we miss it? Glued to our screens, lost in the blur of routine, we forget to look, really look, at the astonishing world we move through every day.

Publishing on 1 May 2025 by Hoxton Mini Press, Everyday Wonder by Sophie Howarth, is a luminous anthology book that is a celebration of curiosity; the gentle, persistent tug that urges us to slow down, look again, and find the extraordinary in the everyday.

Image from a Everyday Wonder, curated by Sophie Howarth

A carefully woven collection of essays, poems, photographs, and creative practices, it invites us to stretch our senses, to follow our questions wherever they lead, to see as if for the very first time. Sometimes, curiosity is about seeking answers, but other times, it’s simply about gazing at something beautiful and letting wonder take over.

Image from a Wonderful World, curated by Sophie Howarth

Curated by artist and writer Sophie Howarth, the book gathers voices that share this reverence for the everyday. Poets like Ross Gay, Jackie Kay, Ellen Bass, Mary Oliver, and James Crews lend their words, while evocative images from photographers such as Josie George, Shin Noguchi, Jenny Lewis, Lisa Sorgini, and Niall McDiarmid capture fleeting, exquisite moments of life unfolding. Sophie Howarth says:

“The book is published against a backdrop of escalating hurt and horror in the news. I hope it can be a small carrier of hope, a gentle reminder that there is also so much beauty and tenderness all around and that we can exercise great power in choosing to notice and amplify this.”

Sophie Howarth

It’s a reminder that we are all, in some way, connected, and that human nature, in its most essential form, does not change. We dress to impress, we pose for the camera, and we long to be seen. And in the quiet intimacy of these anonymous photographs, we find not only the people of the past answers to some vague questions and something of ourselves.

The Anonymous Project – Dressed to Impress can be found here Published by Prestel:  17 April 2025 By Lee Shulman 240 pages, 24 x 30cm, with 220 illustrations: £40 hardback

Find out more about the Eames Institute ‘Curious 100’ here

Pre-order and find out more about Everyday Wonder by Sophie Howarth here. It’s out on the 1st of May.

If you liked reading The Curious Eye: A Love Affair with Lives We Never Lived then why not read Music: Songs That Carry the Challenges of the World ?

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