Flashback: Tom Hunter time travels with the Museum of London

'This art deco lift in Selfridges is one of the landmarks of London. It's number 34 of 50 installed across the city in 1928. It looks quite Arts and Crafts, almost hand-made. The two boys are dressed as Victorian shoeshine boys. Museums present everything chronologically, but I wanted to mix it up and make the viewer work harder' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'When it was described to me, I thought this shop front would be an amazing thing to have. It's a famous 1920s tearoom that was on Piccadilly and I'm told it was a hell of a job to reconstruct. I spent a long time choosing the costume and details. She's a very 60s, Mary Quant-esque figure, in a time of real liberation for women. She's looking at the wedding cake – but is it with romantic nostalgia or is she grateful not to be married and at home?' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'This is actually one of the designers at the museum. I think she has an incredible face – very English with real dignity and strength. She looks like a Constable painting, a noble lady who should be foregrounded against her land, next to an ornate horse and carriage. Instead, she's propped up against a 1950s vespa, contrasting the relationship between class and fashion' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'This is an early 18th-century prison cell in Wellclose Square debtors prison, near the Tower of London, rebuilt by the museum to be exhibited next year. I was amazed when I saw the quality of the detail – just look at the graffiti on the walls. It would have held all manner of criminals, though I doubt this nippy 1930s tearoom waitress might have been one of them' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'This gentleman is a financier in real life. He has a lot of influence, which he uses to help the museum. I put him in the costume of a 1750s city merchant, and he's very nattily dressed for the age. Instead of a carriage, he has this unlikely car from the 1920s' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'This is the actual director of the Museum of London standing beside the lord mayor's coach. It's over the top, gaudy and kitsch but it's also an amazingly crafted object. It's a real coach, wheeled out every year for the Lord Mayor's Parade, to advertise London's wealth and opulence to the world Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'There isn't a radical time shift in this photograph: it's a second world war air raid precaution officer standing in a Victorian tobacconist's. The craftsmanship in the shop puts our modern plastic-reliant newsagents to shame, everything in it is beautiful' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR

'Fittingly, this suffragette works as a gay rights activist in real life, battling on behalf of minority groups – something that is very much part of London's history. She's shown in a Victorian pub, where feminists might have campaigned to reach the general population' Photograph: Tom Hunter/PR